Cauterize It: Going Home
by Ed108bot
Summary: AU Storybrooke. This is a continuation from the world of the story: My Tourniquet by jd4941 and my first story in this series: Let it Bleed. don't own any of the character from OUAT and in the vein of fanfiction I am borrowing the characters created by jd4941: Zoe and Alexis, as adult characters. This story picks up in the year 2055…
1. Chapter 1: It's All in the Asking

**Cauterize It: Going Home**

by Ed108bot

 **AU Storybrooke.** This is a continuation from the world of the story: My Tourniquet by jd4941 and my first story in this series: Let it Bleed. I don't own any of the character from OUAT and in the vein of fanfiction I am borrowing the characters created by jd4941: Zoe and Alexis, as adult characters.

How exactly did Regina and Emma from this story line got back together? This is an attempt to chronicle the steps of their reconciliation.

This story picks up in the year 2055…

 **Chapter One – It's All in the Asking**

She never really liked Storybrooke.

Dressed in black with a wide brim stylish hat and dark glasses, Regina Mills-Jax looked around the town during this most recent visit to Storybrooke. The last time she had come back was five ago. That visit was short-lived, she came and left in the span of three days. Because the town still reminded her of a prison.

The same prison she had been incarcerated in for decades. The dark curse she wielded in revenge only changed the prison of her mother's making for another.

Briefly ihe/i crossed her mind, i Henry…/i

She couldn't wait for her husband and her to leave this place.

She didn't want to come back to Storybrooke but she had pay her respects. Again. She had to say her own goodbyes. Again.

iThey looked so old. Ancient. How much time had passed?/i She wondered. iIt's been over forty years!/i She mentally calculated. Snow White, whose hair finally matched her name, laid in her side of the double wide coffin with a crown of completely white hair. Both her and Charmings faces riddled with deep wrinkles.

In a double coffin laid Snow and Charming, side by side, in death as they were in life. She rolled her eyes at the sentiment. iThey were as annoying in death as they were in life. /iShe ruminated.

She raised both eyebrows when she heard loud sobbing.

She rolled her eyes at Leroy who sobbed the loudest, inconsolable as his brothers handed tissue after tissue, in a futile attempt to stem the tear duct deluge.

After the burial, it was almost a comedy of errors watching the dwarves trying to negotiate the double coffin as pallbearers. Regina could imagine Snow laughing at their plight as well.

center– – –/center

At the gravesite, she looked over to her husband and smiled. They were partners. They were team. She knew one death would visit them, considering he was getting more gray by the years. Her body seemed content to stand still as time marched forward.

She realized she would one day be alone at his funeral.

A tear escaped, followed by another.

Ruby stood next to them and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder when she wiped the tears away from behind her sunglasses.

"I'll miss them too." Ruby said.

While she liked Ruby, considering her a dear friend, she didn't want Ruby's comfort. As Ruby stared longingly at the gravesite, Regina looked at her and noticed she was aging as well.

Everyone was aging all around her! She frowned, blaming her dark mood on the circumstance: yet another funeral.

She hated funerals. There were so many of them after Grannie died, the coffins stretched out like toppled dominoes: the depopulation of Storybrooke.

She hated how the funerals smelled, like burnt sweet wood, flowers and sorrow.

She hated how the funerals sounded, soft whispers of condolences, sniffles, and heavy silence.

She hated how the funerals looked: everyone dressed and behaving formally as stiff and restricted as one does at both like weddings and executions.

Sensing her mood, Jax squeezed her hand and she squeezed back as she wondered where Emma was. Emma was the reason why she attended, why they came: to support her at this time of grief.

She looked over at the twins, Alexia and Zoe, mature women now. Their heads bowed together as they remembered their Gammy Snow and Pawpaw Charming.

They said they spoke with their other mother but Regina hadn't seen nor spoken to Emma at all since they arrived earlier today. She thought she had glimpses of Emma all over Storybrooke: a wild blond mane or the remnants of a plume of dissipating white smoke, indicating Emma may have dematerialized but nothing concrete.

iFine. It's her life./i Regina consulted herself to build up a modicum of detachment.

She looked around at all in attendance: Archie Hopper, Tink, Blue, Ruby, Leroy and the entire town of Storybrooke. The Charmings were still well thought of over the years, even though they left the town for good to be closer to the twins.

But Emma wasn't around having relocated to part unknown overseas and the constant touring with her band. Emma stayed in contact with Jax only.

She spoke to no one else.

Their communications tended to revolve around arrangements to meet the girls. She was gracious enough to include the two younger children in all their outings. All the children would come back hyper and excited by everything they had seen and experienced.

A few time the visits were extended stays: two weeks during winter school breaks, an entire month during the summer. Regina was intensely uncomfortable with any of her children being out of her sight for long but slowly with Jax's support she was able to relax and let them explore the world in the company of Emma.

iIt made it easier dealing with then all eventually going off to college./i She realized.

Regina realized they hadn't spoken to one another since that bizarre affair with her future self so many years ago. She assumed she would eventually see Emma here but the stubborn woman remained elusive. iI suppose she's with my future self./i Regina guessed.

Although she wasn't quite certain of that because she stealthy interrogated her children upon their return from what she liked to call, iAdventures with Emma./i Her children reported were no strange companions nor dopplegangers of herself hanging around.

While she and Emma hadn't spoken, she did keep track of Emma's exploits.

Emma's band, iBusted Halo and Other Misfits/i produced four alternative rock albums She wasn't a fan of the genre but she purchased all four CDs, downloading them as Zoe showed her and listened to each one, numerous times. While Emma had a rich voice, her favorites were the instrumental songs, composed by Emma herself. The music had a sophisticated musicianship that haunted her at the strangest times. She would find herself humming one of two songs from all the albums when she was absentmindedly doing chores or while cooking elaborate meals.

Then the music stopped. Emma's band disbanded: all communication with Jax ceased.

It was as though Emma ceased to exist. Regina worried that something happened, something terrible. No one she knew had seen nor heard from Emma's, not even her former band mates and their manager.

After six months of nothing indicating Emma was alive and well, Regina was almost ready to send out a search party, when Alexis, home for the weekend, causally mentioned she had lunch with Emma after a particularly brutal Linear Algebra midterm exam.

Regina breathed a sigh of relief and mentally chastised an absent Emma for being overly dramatic.

center– – –/center

To accommodate everyone who attended the funeral, the reception was held in the great hall of the City Hall Building. Regina looked around having spent many years here and it seemed smaller than she remembered.

The room was resplendent with flowers, the background instrumental music was light and carefree, by the stage was a blown up photo of the Charmings when they were younger and a projection of candid photos of them, they family and loved ones showed on the wall above the main stage.

Along the wall was a buffet spread of sandwiches, salads, fruits and an assortment of beverages: alcoholic and non alcoholic, cold and hot.

Ruby noticed her too and observed, "Emma did a great job arranging all this."

Regina didn't think about who arranged any of the proceedings and was shocked to know the elusive Emma found the time to communicate anything of importance to anyone other that the twins. Regina looked at the projected photos: she was surprised to see herself in a few of the photos! Everyone from Storybrooke was in the photos. There were even silly ones with the twins. When there was a single photo of a very young, very happy Henry, she gasped.

Before today, she hadn't thought about him in decades!

The fact that she hadn't aged since Emma broke her curse so many years ago was evident in all the photos. What was most telling was when the photos recirculated, Emma wasn't in any of them.

Ruby asked Regina a question but she was so caught up in her thoughts she hadn't heard her. Ruby asked her again, "Are you two staying overnight or heading back after this?"

"We'll stay overnight. I don't want to be on the road while we're both tired." Regina answered.

"That's good! Emma's sticking around to settle things before she goes where ever she goes." Ruby remarked. "Maybe you and Emma can figure out how come you two aren't aging." Ruby added, as she whispered.

"What are you talking about?" Regina asked.

"Neither one of you are aging. Emma stopped touring because the band was aging but she wasn't. One of her fans thought she was a vampire like out of one of those Anne Rice novels." Ruby revealed like a cherished secret.

Taking it all in, Regina noticed Emma covertly exiting the great hall. Regina exhaled a deep breath, squeezed her devoted husband's hand before letting go and walking out the hall to confront the elusive Emma Swan.

center– – –/center

She found Emma outside sitting on a bench under the apple tree, eating some cookies she apparently nicked from the buffet table inside.

After she approached the woman busily consuming cookies while not acknowledging her presence, Regina noticed she hadn't aged a day for the past forty years.

"Jax was a bit hurt when you abruptly stopped speaking to him. He was worried that he had done something to offend you. He wracked his brain for months wondering what it was and how to make amends." Regina quipped. "I think he missed the specialness of being the only one you would speak with." She added with a smile.

"If your worried about your husband, I think you'll find him back inside." Emma replied after she swallowed a particularly delicious morsel of chocolate chip cookie.

"Why did you disappear? Is it because of this lack of aging issue." Regina asked.

"The girls had grown up. I could speak with them directly. I spoke with your husband over the years as a courtesy, not out of friendship. We are not nor will ever be friends." Emma revealed as she ignored the lack of aging they both seemed to be experiencing.

"Why are you still so bitter?" Regina bemoaned. "Aren't you with iHer/i now?" She asked.

"Who? Future you? I wasn't going anywhere with her! I'm no more her Emma than I was yours." Emma replied. She wrinkled her nose when she realized she had no more cookies. She was still a bit peckish.

Regina signed. She realized Emma still held on to some old resentments. She thought when her future self interacted with Emma some of the animosity between them had dissipated. She refused to feel guilty for building her own happiness, nurturing the family she always wanted.

"Perhaps if you ate healthier instead of junk food all the time you'd be satisfied." Regina observed to stop the conversation from escalating into painful territory.

"Don't act like you know me! You know nothing about me and how I live my apparently long life!" Emma shot back.

"I'm not the one purposefully staying away, Emma." Regina replied softly.

"I'm not interested in renewing friendships. Besides, healthy living is kinda stupid when it's not like I'm gonna die of old age!" Emma joked.

"That's not funny!" Regina admonished.

"It's hella funny." Emma laughed.

After the one-sided mirth, the silence built a thicker wall between them.

"What happened between us, occurred such a long time ago and you're acting like it was yesterday. This isn't healthy for you nor our girls." Regina lectured from a position of maturity.

"The girls have no clue of any thing negative between us. If they do, it hasn't come from my camp." Emma retorted. She narrowed her eyes at Regina before she added, "When my mother's happiness was built on the charred remains of your own, you became a story book villain. When the same shit happened to me, I think I handled it a whole lot better than you did."

"My happiness was not at your expense!" Regina protested.

"Really? Answer a question: If Ruby's gran never got sick and they didn't need your help at the diner, would you have ever come back to Storybrooke to then explain the existence of the twins? The answer is blatantly clear to us both, you need not say it out loud." Emma replied.

Regina looked away, back at the building wishing she was back inside with Jax.

"I stayed away to protect myself. Your happiness was built on the bricks of my despair, my alcoholism. Which incidentally is why I have been reluctant to be inside. I won't deprive any one of refreshments which are poison to me." Emma revealed.

"You're not an alcoholic." Regina replied uncertain.

Emma pulled out her sobriety coin, holding it like a shield between her thumb and index finger, and spoke, "Forty years clean. That's something for a rock musician when booze and drugs are like everywhere. While you were playing happy families for those first eight years, I was here in this prison you call a town, searching for you, hoping you survived and weren't dead. Hoping the reason I couldn't find you was because once you crossed the town line you lost all your memories. You didn't know who you were and probably wouldn't know who I was when I found you. The drinking was necessary because no one except me wanted to find you. Well, no one who didn't already know where you were. I had to bribe five men to help me comb the woods for you…your body. They only came for one day because my mom insisted. They left me alone to continue looking after the sun set. The drinking stopped the fear that you were being hurt by bad people. The drinking stopped the fear that you were lost and scared. Eight years of drinking because I wasn't strong enough or smart enough or fast enough to find you. Eight years of drinking to forget Henry. I couldn't stand to look at him after what he admitted he did. Then to see that video. What a miserable failure I was! Who wants to face that shit every fucking day? All I needed was another drink and another and another. I hated my folks when they forced me to deal with Henry. The first two years was easy, he was comatose. Didn't eat, didn't speak and I didn't care. Then he was acting out violently, tried to stab his own heart out one day, yelling it was black. I was disturbed but deep down where it really counted: still didn't care. The darkness that you existed in, you externalized it. In me, it festered inside, settling in my bones. So yes Regina, the happiness you got was built on the remains of my dried corpse. Tell me, should I invoke another dark curse in retaliation? You seem to be an expert in that sort of thing. I Should I kill thousands and subjugate the survivors? Who should I hunt and punish? You? Jax? Henry? My selfish parents are dead so there is no conciliation prize tormenting them besides the twins really loved them. Should I continue to punish myself? I suppose in the end I did as you, removed myself from the pain. You didn't want to acknowledge me nor Henry, what he was nor what he did. I get that now. Really I do. So why should I stick around you when every hug, kiss and smiled share between you and Jax is evidence of my complete and utter incompetence as a mother, as a lover and as a friend. Avoiding the pain that is you: imucho/i preferable to drinking again." Emma monologued.

Regina swallowed the tears that formed. She didn't want to know any of that. She tried to shield herself thinking Emma was fine.

Emma stood, stretched then spoke, "I was gonna go visit Henry after all this. He doesn't know Snow and Charming are dead yet. Wasn't up to dealing with him. I've just decided, you can go tell him or not. Its up to you. I'm not going up there today. I'll see him next month. I don't have someone else's misery as building material but I'm going to search for my happiness."

She disappeared in a plume of white smoke.


	2. Chapter 2: Henry

**Chapter Two – Henry**

After speaking with Jax about her conversation with Emma, Regina realized she never gave herself nor Emma the closure they needed. She also realized with trepidation she needed to see Henry, once and for all.

During the two hour drive from Storybrooke to the mental institution, in Portland, Regina looked at some photos of Henry when he was a child before all the unpleasantness. He was a sweet boy, curious and loving, she recalled with a sad smile.

It all changed when his curiosity drove him to discover he was adopted. Regina didn't keep it as a big secret she just never broached the subject because for her it didn't matter: Henry was her son from the follicles of his scalp to his toes.

He was angry that he was never told but he was most angry that he was given away and not kept by his birth mother. He seemed impatient and angry at everyone. Regina realized that's why she told the children all about her past and Emma's role in it, she didn't want to repeat the mistakes she made with Henry.

But she did, being brutally honest with herself. _Keeping the secret of the twins from Emma was damaging to Emma._

She also realized her future self was correct when she acknowledged leaving Emma behind was a way to stop hurting her. She damaged Emma as a child and damaged her again as an adult. It had to stop! Regina realized the moment she gave Jax a chance that she was trying to give Emma one too.

She looked at the profile of Jax's face as reveled in the comfort that she chose him not that he was chosen for her by fate or insipid tattoos. She didn't realize Emma wasn't afforded that same luxury in her absence.

 _I didn't want to know one way or the other._ She admitted to herself.

Being brutally honest again, a part of her wanted to punish Emma for her abandonment, wanted her to feel the pain that she felt. It was painful to her when Emma was not emotionally available for her while she was grieving the loss of her mother navigating the manipulations of Snow's selfishness. She didn't realize Emma had no way to escape like she did.

After Henry hurt her, Regina was surprised that so many people she never thought gave her any notice, cared so deeply about her and for her. She didn't realize Emma didn't have anyone but herself.

She had hoped her future self would have been able to help Emma but stubbornly Emma refused that help. Coming to see Henry was her small way of acknowledging the turmoil and darkness Emma had gone through alone: a small way to shed a bit of light for Emma's sake.

– – –

They were taken to a large white room, it seemed like a recreational room with the metal tables and chairs welded to the floor. There were three armed correctional guards in the room with her and Jax while they waited for the orderlies to escort Henry to visit with them.

Regina was beyond nervous, which was absurd since her magic fully returned to her after her future self disappeared and Emma began whatever the hell she had become: neither she nor Jax liked to consider all they had witness so many years ago. They both attributed it to flights of fancy–yet her magic returned outside the boundaries of Storybrooke.

Her magic returned and she could protect herself. She could protect herself at a level that would make Jax nervous so she kept her magic benign, like her twin daughters. Yet she knew if Henry tried anything dangerous she would and could finish it once and for all.

She stood beside Jax too nervous to sit as they waited.

Then she saw him: Henry was thinner that she remembered. He lost the musculature he had built up when he kidnapped the girls. He wore a stark white t-shirt and light blue worn jeans. Sitting in a wheelchair, he didn't wear shoes, his feet covered by dark socks as he was wheeled silently into the room. He was so much older than she remembered. His face was slack, emotionless. His dark hair thinning as baldness emerged along with a few strands of gray.

He looked at her, through her as his wheelchair was pushed towards the table. She and Jax sat down on the opposite side.

He sighed.

"Henry?" She spoke as a question because she wasn't certain who this disturbed man was.

He jumped when she spoke at him, his eyes widened. Then he looked around for a way to escape.

"Settle down Mills. We don't want to get the restraints again, do we?" One of the guard cautioned.

Henry struggled to settled his breath as he closed his eyes. When he opened them again he saw her and the strange man. The man didn't seem dangerous so he stared off into space again.

"Henry, if you want me to leave, I will." Regina suggested quietly.

He looked at her again shocked then spoke, "You never speak to me!"

"I know I haven't seen you in a long time…" Regina began before he interrupted her again.

"You're always here, Mom. That's my punishment. To always see you. You just never speak. I thought It was because dead people can't speak." Henry dismissed whatever this specter of his mother was trying to say.

"You think… I'm dead?" Regina asked, mortified by his answer.

"Of course you're dead! I killed you!" Henry shouted. Then he hit himself hard in his head with both his fists over and over again.

"What happens if we self harm, Mills?" The same Officer cautioned cryptically.

He immediately stopped hitting himself and leaned forward, "I meant when I was tricked into killing you. I really wish I hadn't done that. But wishes aren't real." He whispered conspiratorially. "With you dead everything fell apart, even Emma. She fell into many, many parts. They are many of her now, you know. She's everywhere at the same time, so be careful. She knows everything. She can hear thoughts, even thoughts of dead people."

He looked around the room searching for one of the many Emmas he had encountered.

He looked back at the specter of his Mother who began to sob, "Don't worry Mom. She can't hurt you, you're dead. I sometimes wish I could be dead with you but she won't let me. We aren't allowed to self harm here. It's forbidden, you know. We have to be good all the time even when the other thoughts… especially after snack time."

Regina sobbed inconsolably as Jax comforted her. She didn't realize exactly what Emma had to deal with and how lost Henry was: her boy was truly gone.

– – –

Henry didn't react to her crying. He rocked to comfort himself and stared at his favorite wall the one that had no imperfections in it: no cracks, no dimples. It was the sort of wall his Mom would insist upon when any room in their home was being repainted.

He thought of his home, his room, his comic books… one of those Emmas came bay tried to give him comic book to read but he didn't understand it. The last comic book he read, Superman died now in the newer book he was alive again? He made him angry that Superman could have a second chance but he and his mother couldn't. He hated all books never wanting to read anything ever again.

– – –

When Regina composed herself she spoke, "Henry I have to tell you something important. I hope you understand."

Henry continued to stare at the perfection of the wall, wishing to possess its perfection for himself.

Regina continued, "Your grandparents, Snow and Charming. They passed away." She winced at the euphemism and restated the news, feeling the weight of the words lift as soon as she spoke them, "They died. They were buried earlier today."

Henry heard something important so he shifted from the wall of perfection to the ghost of his dead mother. She rarely spoke so he thought it best to listen to what it was she had to say.

She repeated herself when she finally held his eyes, "Your grandparents, Snow and Charming died. They were buried earlier today."

"Good." He replied when he realized she was giving him news from the world of the dead.

He closed his eyes as he spoke, "Mom, everyday they spoke about getting rid of you for the good of everyone, especially Emma. Every damn day!"

"Language young man!" He spoke mimicking how he remembered his mother admonishing both him and Emma's loose language.

"That wasn't fair. I'm glad they're dead. They were… hypocrites." Henry whispered before he promptly drifted off to sleep, content that dead mothers can sometimes speak from beyond the grave and the perfection of walls can be a symbol to anyone seeking to improve themselves, along the same lines.


	3. Chapter 3: Trust: the Intersection of Ma

**Chapter Three –** **Trust: the Intersection of Magic and Science**

At 8:30 a.m., the phone rang in Jax and Regina's New York mansion bedroom.

Red-eyed and morose Regina stared at it until a masculine hand picked it up, answering the call.

"Honey, its Alexis. She wants to speak with you." Jax said as he looked at his wife with concern. Jax and the kids were worried when Regina laid in bed for weeks after the funeral of the Charmings and her visit with Henry.

Regina raised up off the bed to received the phone and teared up again when she heard her daughter's voice, so strong and vibrant.

Such a stark constant from how Henry's voice sounded three weeks ago.

Jax continued getting ready for the car service to pick him up to catch the early train out of Penn Station to Washington DC. He had an early afternoon meeting with the board of directors of his charitable foundation. He was considering canceling his attendance, leaving his agenda in the capable hands of his CFO. Regina insisted that he go and promised she would speak with her therapist about her feelings concerning Henry.

Jax was equally concerned that she wanted to see the disturbed young man again. He knew she probably would not be able to convince Henry that he didn't succeed in killing her. _The young man was too far gone, mentally._ He seemed less agitated calmly pleased to finally hear from his ghost mother.

– – –

Over the phone call, Alexis attempted to distract her mother with good news, "Mother, we did it! The hush hush project Zoe and I spearheaded is completely funded!"

Regina was so proud of her eldest girls and their accomplishments. After they defended and received their PhDs at Princeton, they both landed senior research positions at a major tech corporation in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey.

Regina didn't like nickname the twins called themselves, _The Evil Scientists_. Alexia liked to joke, "We're keeping world domination in the family!"

Regina teased Alexia back over her latest girlfriend wondering if this one would be the one to get her to commit like Zoe did. Zoe had gotten engaged to her high school boyfriend. They laughed a bit about the antics of Alexis' younger brother and sister navigating the whimsy of college life as sophomores.

Alexis reluctantly asked if her Mom was going to visit Henry again. Regina didn't hesitate to say, "Yes," adding, "it wasn't fair for your Mom to handle his issues all by herself."

"You did it alone for the first ten years, Mother." Alexis retorted.

"Yes, but he didn't have the same issues then that he has now. I have to admit Emma wasn't the only one to contribute to his current mental state. I stopped being his mother when I tried to lobby for being his friend: he needed a mother, even one who disappointed him. Even one he mistrusted." Regina whispered.

"Don't beat yourself up over it Mother! Like I told Mom you can only do so much but you can't make yourself sick over it. That does not one any good." Alexis advised.

"When did you get so wise?" Regina asked with a smile.

"I had excellent examples in wisdom from you, Daddy, and Mom." Alexia laughed.

They said their goodbyes after Alexis promised to stop by the old homestead for a nice long visit.

– – –

After the phone call, Regina got out of bed, showered, dressed and went into the kitchen to prepare Jax's breakfast before his train ride to Washington DC. He was so happy to see that she had finally gotten out of bed he waited for his breakfast of scrambled eggs with fresh dill and toast, even though he wasn't really hungry.

As he ate, Regina regarded Jax and wondered when did he age? He was still quite a handsome man but she realized he would be considered elderly, at the ripe old age of seventy, while she still looked like she was in her mid thirties.

But she felt so old inside, old and tired.

"I'll hold on until he leaves. Then I'll allow ten minutes of a bit more blubbering before I call Archie for a chat." She promised herself.

– – –

After she kissed Jax goodbye, between promises to eat, and go out for some fresh air, Regina closed the front door as Jax's private car service drove away from the curb. She cried worrying and wondering whether or not her initial attempts to discredit Henry's insistence that they all lived under a curse and that everyone in Storybrooke was a fairy tale character contributed to his current mental state.

She never wanted Henry to suffer with a mental condition, she only thought he would grow out of his obsessions with fairy tales.

But he never forgave her for her past transgressions and she realized how foolish it was for her to assume she could outrun the dark deeds of her past. _Unlike Snow,_ she thought bitterly, she was always prepared, every step of the way, to pay for her transgressions, to stand unapologetic in the face of retribution but she never anticipated the innocence of others would take the brunt of her punishments.

She never felt such despair until she saw the absolute deterioration of Henry's mental condition.

She was admittedly angry at what he had done to her. It was easy to dismiss him and her anger with him as she healed and rebuilt her life with Jax.

Jax made everything easy. She wondered if they could have survived together if any of their other children had the same mental problems Henry had.

 _What if they inherited the instability of Rumplestilskin or… ? she shuddered, Mother?_ if she was honest.

Regina looked at herself in the mirror and realized with crystal clarity her own upbringing and history could have adversely affected all her children, if she didn't have such a caring and nurturing partner like Jax by her side.

Jax lived a fortunate and charmed life. He had an amazing childhood full of love and adventure. Like her, he was born into wealth and had access to every resource to quadruple his wealth. Jax learned from both his parents, the virtues of justice, love, compassion, and true happiness.

Jax was so confident he never got jealous. He wasn't jealous of the connection she had with Emma because he trusted that Regina would always be true to him.

 _But there was a time when I wouldn't have been._ She admitted to herself.

 _Jax had advantages I didn't have. Neither did Emma. A lot of the negative experiences in both of our lives weighed heavily against the success of a true partnership between Emma and I._ Regina realized.

She just didn't realize how much Emma had to shoulder on her own with her selfish, entitled, myopic parents and a very disturbed Henry.

Her tears fell when she realized how deeply Emma had to have been hurt to see her so happy while she was miserable. She didn't think Emma, a strong woman who was forged in this world, would crumble from the stresses of a fairy tale world.

After ten minutes of reflection, when she had cried her tear ducts dry, she dialed Archie and spewed out all her revelations and insights to a trusted friend.

– – –

When Jax finished with his meeting he stepped out of the civic center where the meeting was held to wait for the car service to take him to the train station. He looked around the busy street. He felt a familiar tingle all over his body, as though someone benign was watching at him. He entertained the thought that his mystery guardian angel was watching over him once again and he smiled to himself.

Jax caught the Acela express train back to NYC. As the train waited to depart, he checked his schedule and noticed he was due to arrive in Penn Station in three hours.

He settled in his seat to read the Washington Herald newspaper for a bit before he called Regina to let her know he was on his way back home. He was pleased at how energetic she sounded. In his absence, she revealed that she spoke with Archie, organized and cleaned their bedroom, bathroom and her office house to help dispel her dim mood.

He told her about the meetings, how pleased he was to get everything he planned implemented by the board of his foundation. He also told her some news items, one of interest in the society page of the Washington Herald. He gossiped, "It seems for the past three weeks, the prominent Nigerian mathematician, the exotically beautiful Imani Obi has been seen in the company of... Emma Swan."

"Who?" Regina inquired as she scanned through some paperwork on her desk.

"Imani Obi. We met her at the Research Foundation's Gala three months ago." Jax reminded her.

"Oh that Imani Obi. Well, I'm surprised Emma knows someone with such lofty academic associations." Regina remarked with an air of disinterest.

Jax smirked to himself when, "You can't possibly be jealous?"

"Me? Of course not. Emma is free to do whatever she wants with her life."

"Good. I'm glad I don't have to deal with the dovey eyes and the yearning looks, anymore." Jax sighed.

"I don't make dovey eyes and I don't yearn." Regina quipped.

"She did… over you. Now she can point those brilliant green eyes at someone else." Jax remarked.

– – –

After they finished their phone call Regina immediately turned on her desktop the computer to goggle this Obi woman.

In every picture: Imani Obi was fashion model gorgeous!

She felt a slight pang of sadness when she found one photo of Imani Obi kissing Emma on a beach setting.

Regina shut off the computer, annoyed.

She didn't want Emma to be miserable forever but truthfully she never thought Emma, who had many one night and weekend long companions, would ever begin an almost month long, more permanent relationship with someone else.

– – –

Emma was reclining next to Imani on the couch as Imani read research articles and Emma did her sudoku puzzles. They had been enjoying each others company all morning, quietly occupied with different interests.

Everything was peaceful, until Emma felt a bit nauseous and darted off the couch into the bathroom.

Imani checked on her after she had been gone for a while and joked, " I hope I haven't gotten you preggers!"

Emma darted a look at her and replied, "If you could, it wouldn't shock me at all."

– – –

After the _Acela train_ sped through West Windsor Township, New Jersey, the setting sun seemed to shine brighter than normal as Jax looked out the window of the train. The brightness seemed to grow until he felt a violent jolt.

Darkness. Arid smoky air all around him.

He could hear the moans and groans of others. He tried to get a look around to see what had happen but the car was really dark. He could move, his hands, his arms, his legs nor his feet. But he could move his neck, slightly before the pain in his chest burned.

He blinked the pain away, only able to make out shapes when his gaze fell on things around him. He heard the creak of metal losing its tensile strength. The dark world he existed in seemed to slide and sway.

He tried to remember how the train looked before and the people who were around him: a young man and woman; two business men; a teenager wearing a hoodie, baggy jeans, dirt sneakers and long hair cradling full knapsack and skateboard…

His thoughts were interrupted by someone shouting, "Is everyone okay in here? Shout if you need help!"

He tried to open his mouth but nothing but gurgling sounds came out.

Suddenly unknown hands danced all over his body, then some people grabbed onto him: his arms and torso. They began to pull and tug him free.

– – –

Regina was listening to the news on the radio when a special bulletin was being reported, "Approximately twenty-minutes ago, the 5:15 Acela 234 travelling from Washington DC to NYC has derailed in Plainsboro Township. Crews on scene report massive casualties. We will bring you updates as they come in. Again the 5:15 Acela 234 travelling from Washington DC to NYC has derailed in Plainsboro Township. Please stay tuned for more updates as this situation progresses."

Regina stood up from her desk chair with her cell phone gripped highly in her fist when she realized _that was Jax's train!_ Calling forth all her power, she immediately dematerialized in a plume of rich purple smoke.

– – –

Jax could see the early evening sky darkening overhead as he laid flat on his back on the ground. He turned his head slightly to see the train or what was the chard, mangled metallic mess that was the train he was traveling on, down a slight embankment on the tracks below where he laid.

He was surrounded by three people, the people who pulled him from the wreckage of the train. The helplessness which sat on all their faces as they looked at each other, avoiding his blurry eyes, told him his grim prognosis.

One of them, a young hooded person kneeled down beside him, touching him reverently as they sobbed. Jax gently smiled at all his saviors.

He mouthed the words "Thank you." Then he closed his eyes.

– – –

Distraught, Regina materialized at the accident site.

Frustrated by emergency crew hampering her ability to find Jax, she used her magic freely to move about the accident site not caring who saw her.

She found Jax laying his back, on the ground. Two men were standing near him confused and lost, while a young female teenager wearing a hoodie was crouched beside him crying and yelling at him, "Not on my time! Save this shit for another day! Not on my watch!"

Bewildered, Regina tossed the teenager aside as she made her way to her husband, calling out for him. Letting him know, she was there with him and that everything would be fine. She noticed he was covered head to toe, in soot and debris. There was a large wound that something had impaled his right thigh. She gently caressed his face, which was cold to the touch.

She looked up and called for emergency crews to come to his aid and then scrambled closer to rest his head on her lap instead of the cold ground. He wasn't moving so she talked to him to come back to her, not to leave her.

He still didn't move, his skin getting colder, his hands and facial muscles slack. She hoped against hope and then putting all her love for him and holding it in her heart and mind, she leaned over and kissed him on his lips, a kiss of true love.

She sat back waiting for something to happen but nothing did. His condition didn't change when the emergency crew began working on him to revive him. When the emergency crew's Herculean efforts were fruitless something shut down inside her as she watched them methodically prepare his body for transport, covering him with a sheet before they rushed off to try to save someone else.

When Jax's body is carried to a transport vehicle she tried to jump in the back with him insistent that she can't leave him alone, that she's his wife and her place is by his side.

One of the emergency crew member, gently broke the reality of the situation with her, "Ma'am, this isn't an ambulance. This is for… the others. Before the night is done he won't be the only one back there. There just won't be any room for anyone else to ride along."

– – –

As Regina surveyed the landscape, the accident site looked like a battle field, which took her back briefly to memories of the Ogre Wars.

The front four cars of the express train had been completely destroyed as though it collided with something huge. It looked like no one had survived the impact in the first three cars. The fourth car had twisted on its side and derailed from the track pulling the fifth and sixth cars with it. The top of the fourth car looked like it had been ripped open from the outside by a powerful force. The rear seventh and eight cars were unscathed.

Regina watched through tears as slightly injured people were being helped out of all the cars behind the fourth one.

She heard something ringing and slowly realized it was her phone. She looked for it, having forgotten she placed it in the pocket of her slacks, now dirty with dirt and grass stains. She took out the cell phone, noticing it was a call from Alexis. She accepted the call, wondering, How did she know already?

"Mommy?" Alexis shouted.

"Yes, Baby." Regina spoke so amazing calm.

"Something terrible has happened!"

"I know, Baby. I know." Regina replied.

"It wasn't supposed to happen like this. We planned for everything! This is all my fault! Please forgive me!" Alexis cried.

"Sweetheart, this wasn't your fault. It probably was his time." Regina sobbed.

"Whose time?" Alexia asked.

"Your father, Sweetheart. Your father is gone." Regina revealed.

She heard Alexia gasp, the cry some more as she tried to sooth her child over the electronic device. She offered to come to her but Alexis refused stating that the facility where she was, was in lockdown after the accident.

The silence travelled their connection was broken when Alexis asked, "Are your sure? Daddy is gone?"

"Yes, Baby." Regina replied softly.

After a moment, Alexis revealed, "Zoe's gone too. Zoe is gone and it's all my fault."

– – –

Because of Jax's religious obligations his funeral was held two days after the accident and the coroner officially declared he was dead. The memorial service was held in an opulent temple and well attended with his business colleagues, dignitaries, famous actors, musicians and friends.

The main hall was respondent with colorful flowers. There was a large picture of Jax on a placard when he was a young man, before he met Regina.

Jax's cousins, his eldest paternal aunt and uncle attended. His mother and father had passed away many years ago. Alexis, her younger brother and sister accompanied Regina, Ruby, Archie, Tink and her family. Even Blue attended the solemn affair to give her heart felt condolences to Regina and her family.

Only two people who should have been there, weren't: Zoe, who had disappeared in the accident at her work that caused the derailment of Acela 234 nearby... and Emma.

– – –

After all the well wishers left and her children slept in their childhood rooms one last time, Regina drank some really potent apple cider. She knocked back glass after glass, trying the catch the numbness she sought that existed just off the periphery of herself.

In the haze of a decent buzz, she saw herself staring at herself as Future Regina finally appeared.

"I've been expecting you." Regina spoke as she sized herself up.

Future Regina stood there judging her current self's condition as she spoke, "This is not helpful."

"Helpful to who? You? If you say anything about needing me to help you on your Emma Quest, you can go to hell!" Current Regina shouted.

"I'm already there." Future Regina replied.

"Did you do this? Did you take him from me to get what you wanted?" Current Regina probed. When her future self didn't answer she accused, "You knew this was going to happen! You knew when you thanked him before explaining your madness to me! And you didn't tell me! You didn't warn me!"

Furious Current Regina summoned her power sending a compression wave through her hand hitting her future self and knock her into a nearby wall.

When her future self got up she immediately protected herself from another attack with a transparent shield.

"Yes, I knew what was going to happen because what happened was history to me." Future Regina tried to explain.

"Shut up! Shut Up! You know what it felt like the last time this happened and you let it happen again!" Current Regina screamed as she lobbed a series of fast fire balls at her future head.

When her fire balls missed their target, Current Regina raised both her hands to lift her future self up by her neck and began to squeeze. Future Regina hit her past self with a blast into her mid section, then raised a solid mass of stone around her past self, encasing her up to her neck to immobilize her talented hands.

"Are you done?" She asked her pissed off, drunken, grieving self.

"I knew Jax was going to die because he already had. What you are failing to understand is we also lost Zoe but she can be retrieved. She's the child of true love and she has magic but she's trapped, pushed into another dimension. We have to get her back! We can but we need Emma as well." Future Regina explained.

"Fuck Emma! Once again someone dear to me dies and she's absent!" Current Regina spat out.

"Emma blames herself for Jax's death." Future Regina revealed.

"She caused that accident?" Current Regina asked, heartbroken if the answer was yes.

"You've been so steadfast in your need to mentally and emotionally push Emma away, you don't remember who she really is, do you?" Future Regina asked.

Current Regina blinked a few times tired of her own bullshit and this tiresome conversation. She struggled a bit to free herself to no avail.

"You're magic has been fully restored but you didn't share that with Jax over the years. Why?" Future Regina asked.

"What? I told him a had a bit of magic. I even showed him some of it." Current Regina replied.

"You have full access to your magic outside Storybrooke. Powerful enough that you could have caused the accident all by yourself and he died not knowing that. Why?"

"I didn't kill my husband! Jax gave up a lot of his core beliefs to create a life with me and two magical babies. He had been gracious and loving. I didn't want to add one more thing to the pot of our life then he could handle." Current Regina replied, dismissively.

"You didn't want him to know you were powerful. As powerful as Emma was when she ascended, forty years ago. You didn't want him to realize he lacked attributes that you share with Emma. It was fine to parade his virtues and strengths in front of her, brow beating her into low self esteem but he was shielded from her strengths. No wonder she stopped speaking to us." Future Regina deduced.

"Go to hell!" Current Regina shouted.

"Still already there." Future Regina groused.

"I didn't hide from my husband. He could see I'm not aging. He took that in stride with me by his side." Current Regina boasted.

"Of course he could deal with have an eternally attractive wife. What man couldn't? What would he have thought of himself and his place beside you, if he knew you could exist off this planet, in space, without breathing apparatus or could walk along the deepest trenches in the ocean without breaking a finger nail?" Future Regina probed.

"I… can do those things!" Current Regina asked incredulously.

"We can travel through time." Future Regina reminded herself, in a duh fashion, as she gestured to herself.

"I saw you try to revive him with a kiss of true love. It didn't work though. Why would you do that?" Future Regina asked.

Angry, Current Regina taunted, "Why couldn't you save Future Emma with true loves' kiss?"

"There was nothing left of Emma to revive with a kiss. I watched her being atomized trying to save Zoe, killing them both in her attempt to rescue our daughter. I made a lot of mistakes. The same one's you are making. We have to forgive Emma to get her to help us. If she senses we judge her as lacking or unworthy, she will shut down and we'll lose them both all over again." Future Regina advised.

"I don't judge Emma negatively."

"The first thought you had after she didn't show up to comfort you was whether she was responsible for Jax's accident." Future Regina accused.

"You said: she blames herself." Current Regina reminded herself.

"For not stopping it, not for causing it!" Future Regina replied, frustrated with her past self needs to dismiss, misalign and critically judge Emma.

"How could she have stopped it? Can she predict the future too?" Current Regina asked.

"Embrace me and all will be revealed." Future Regina instructed.

"What?" Current Regina asked.

"We have to merge. I can't jump time anymore without damaging my mind. Together you and I can save our daughter." Future Regina revealed.

"Why do we need Emma then?" Current Regina asked.

This won't work if you keep pushing her away. You want her to carry all the blame and never acknowledge our own mistakes and missteps. That's straight out of Snow's operating manual." Future Regina admonished. "We need her. We can't do this by ourselves." Future Regina complained.

"I've seen Henry! I understand what she's gone through with him. But if we are so powerful why can't we fix this by ourselves?" Current Regina asked.

"Because I've tried and tried before. Each time the new outcome was far worst than the last." Future Regina revealed.


	4. Chapter 4: The Yoga of Time Travel

**Chapter Four –** **The Yoga of Time Travel: It's Nothing but Possibility Waves Up, Down, All Around**

Confident she wouldn't be attacked again, Future Regina released her past self from the stony restraint. Current Regina rubbed her arms briskly to rub away the stiffness. When her future self was prepared to speak again, she held up her hand to tell her to stop talking. She needed to regroup as she walked over to the bar and poured another glass of cider.

"That won't help the situation." Future Regina admonished.

"My husband is gone and my child is missing! A drink is my least concern, thank you!" Current Regina retorted. She raised the tumbler to her lips and took a long sip, hoping the cider would wash away everything, even her future self.

She closed her eyes worried mostly about Zoe: _where she was; if she was alive and safe or…_

Before her confrontation with her future self, she was upstairs putting a distraught Alexis into a peaceful sleep in her bed. Alexia crumbled at the threshold of the bedroom she shared with her sister, blaming herself for the loss of both Jax and Zoe.

 _She looked so much like Emma when she pleaded for my forgiveness but it was an accident. Just a stupid accident._ Current Regina thought.

Alexia looked like she hadn't slept since the night of the accident. Regina soothed her daughter's mind with a light sleeping spell. She kissed her forehead after tucking her in then went downstairs expecting her unsolicited time travelling visitor.

– – –

Current Regina took another sip and she wondered _what happened to Jax's so called guardian angel._

Over the years, Jax would be inadvertently ensnared in dangerous misadventures which he was able to miraculously escape, unscathed. She looked at her future self with a suspicious mind, prepare to get some answers.

"A few years after you arrived, Jax finished up a meeting in midtown Manhattan, in the diamond district, and he innocently walked out of the building and into a gunfight between the police and a group of armed thieves who stole millions in diamonds from one of the diamond exchanges. Some bystanders suffered minor injuries, all the thieves were shot and captured. A cop was shot as well. Jax who had been standing in the midst of bullets flying everywhere, came home without a scratch. While I was understandably upset, Jax laughed it off saying he had a guardian angel. Do you know anything about that?" Current Regina probed with narrowed eyes.

Future Regina looked away from her past self and sighed as she crossed her arms over her chest, refusing to speak.

"If that doesn't jog your memories, there were other small incidents over the years. Just missed being hit by a taxi, avoiding a piece of scaffold that had fallen twenty-nine story from a construction site; avoiding being swallowed by a large sinkhole… I had the suspicion someone was out there targeting my husband but Jax was convinced someone was keeping him safe." She offered to prompt an admission of some sort.

With no further comments from her future self, Current Regina continued, "There was another time he miraculously escaped serious peril, quite recently in fact. There was a gas leak and explosion which leveled a six-story office building in downtown Brooklyn. Jax had a meeting there and he insisted he was inside that building in a conference room on the fourth floor before everyone smelled gas and then… he wasn't. The building exploded and found himself standing ten blocks away from the explosion site. He couldn't remember how he got from one place to the other. Incidentally no one else was injured either, everyone had gotten out and none of them remember how they did that. Do you have any explanations?"

"Honestly, I can't tell you much about any of that?" Future Regina replied.

"You confuse me. You are lobbying so hard for me to reconcile with Emma and you go and do those things." Current Regina observed.

"Everything I've ever done, was to save my child! I couldn't protect nor save Henry from himself but I will not lose Zoe too. Each time I find myself getting farther and farther away from that objective." Future Regina lamented.

"Emma was no help at all with Henry! How can she help us with Zoe?" Current Regina asked.

"I also thought I didn't need Emma to correct this. I knew I was powerful enough to handle it myself but I was wrong, so dreadfully wrong." Future Regina replied before she recounted her past attempts of traveling back into the past to save her Zoe and herself:

– – –

"I went back to the time when Henry visited me in the kitchen…" Future Regina began.

Current Regina had to sit down, lest she fall and drop her drink. She drained the tumbler since those memories were still so raw and visceral for her.

"I materialized in the doorway, behind him, seeing myself, happy to see him, unaware of the danger Henry posed. I saw myself turning away from him, to offer him something to eat from the refrigerator. I saw him take that damned glove out of his knapsack and I remembered… I was prepared just to stop him but I was driven by my anger at him for what he was about to do. I struck Henry with a lightening blast into his back before he could attack my other self. He died instantly. I had killed my son!" Future Regina lamented as she remembered.

Current Regina stared incredulously at herself.

"I had killed my son, disappeared to the garden, only to hear myself howl in despair. It was as though he had done it all over again. My pain spilling all over that kitchen, like my burnt blood had in the past, almost undid me." Future Regina recounted.

"As you can imagine, the death of Henry was all Snow and Charming needed to condemn me. My aspect at the time was so defeated, I was basically immobile having retreated into myself. I stored myself secretly away outside Storybrooke and took my place, if that makes any sense."

Current Regina silently nodded that it did.

"They didn't believe me even after when I showed them the glove Henry stole and what he had planned to do with it. Even after Gold confirmed it. I was summarily arrested, tried and condemn to be executed, by some trumped up tribunal Snow set up. The weird thing, everyone who helped you in this time line, Tink, Ruby, Granny, Archie, and a host of others, they all turned their backs on me on that altered one. Emma, our only champion, was wracked with guilt over Henry's death, what he had planned to do to me, and what Snow and Charming insisted had to be done to me. They would have killed me if they hadn't discovered I was pregnant… with the twins. They imprisoned me until I gave birth. Emma and I bonded over that time from having experienced similar circumstances and our affection for each other." Future Regina smiled.

"They took my girls from me and were going to let Gold wipe my memories to punish me, instead of executing me. I didn't have access to my powers to escape, constantly worried about the other me in the world lost to herself with no one to care for her. Emma was distraught torn between the wellbeing of our girls and me. She practiced her magic, perfected it and changed herself to look like me, taking my place but Gold tricked the Charmings planning to kill me instead of just taking away my memories. He wanted to make Emma darker, replacing me for someone who could be more susceptible to his influence. She died protecting me. I asked her why she sacrificed herself for me and she said it was because I was her true love." Future Regina cried.

"What happened to the girls?" Current Regina asked.

"They were taken back to the Enchanted Forest. You saw how Henry turned out in their care. Snow was an overly permissive custodian. Like her father she spoiled the girls. Exiled from the Enchanted Forest, all I could do is watch from enchanted mirrors and reflective surfaces as my girls grew into narcissistic, selfish children. Without either you or Emma's or Jax's influence, our girls matured into vindictive women with magic… they used the darkest magic to seek revenge on their grandparents for killing Emma and banishing me. The cycle of darkness continued and Gold reveled in the chaos. You remember how Emma easily burned away the barrier you Gold and Blue concocted. Without Emma, I wasn't powerful enough to break the barrier which prevented me from returning to the Enchanted Forest to rescue them."

– – –

"I was never comfortable with Gold being around my girls. I've never trusted him." Current Regina reflected.

"Since I couldn't stop Henry's actions without serious repercussions, so I thought I could change the course of my relationship with Emma. I thought if she and I never give into our love perhaps maybe Henry wouldn't have been moved to try to harm me. And I wouldn't hurt her. But the twins were never born. Henry didn't try to hurt me but he never trusted me ever again. And Emma, my sweet Emma she was so lost and empty, the alcoholism that claimed her heart instead, destroyed her. I watched everything and everyone I cared for dry up and crumble away. Then I discovered I couldn't age. It took decades of watching people I know die to be replace by people I didn't know; watching Storybrooke decay then grow again, never feeling connected to any of it. Always out of step and out of time. Always alone. After thirty years of that misery, I decided I had to do something radically different the next time." Future Regina recounted.

– – –

"I went even further back to stop myself from wielding the dark curse." Future Regina continued.

"I realized Emma would never have been born neither would the twins nor Henry. Only I would remember them. I thought that would be a fitting punishment for having mucked everything up so badly. I didn't realize Mother's ambitions superseded putting me on the throne as queen. She eventually killed Rumplestilskin and became the new Dark One. Her first act as the Dark One was to provoke a new war against the other kingdoms with the Ogres as allies, under my family's coat of arms and standard. I fought a horrific war by her side, adding more deaths to my tally. After the war, which lasted for eight years, the Enchanted Forest was decimated far worse than what was left after the dark curse. After the last kingdom fell to Mother's forces and we successfully conquered twelve more realms, she poison me during a victory dinner having no need of me either." Future Regina laughed bitterly.

– – –

"I would not have stopped myself from wielding the dark curse. I do not regret doing it: from that act I had Henry, and then was gifted Alexis and Zoe." Current Regina commented as she judged her future self actions critically.

Future Regina smiled at herself and observed, "There's the me that I know, respect and admire: resolute and fiercely determined."

Current Regina smirked into the praise.

"I tried every different permutation of changes resulting in one disaster after another. After the eighth attempt, I realized it was me working without Emma that set me up for failure. Each time I kept trying to prevent Emma from being who she really is, to protect her from the pain I caused her. I now realize it's all her experiences, the good and bad, which combine to make her such a powerful, resourceful woman," Future Regina continued.

"I went forward in time to when I lost... my Emma. Before her body molecules were completely ripped apart by the intense ionized radiation bombarding the dimension she and Zoe were trapped, she told me that immediately after she learned about the existence of the twins and your marriage to Jax she was at her lowest point… she believed if she had the knowledge of her powers earlier she could have rebounded quicker and being stronger, faster and smarter." Future Regina disclosed.

"I asked her should I go back to that time to prepare her? She said yes without hesitation. She trusted me so much more than I ever trusted her. I came back and I successfully helped Emma's powers expand beyond her imagination. But this Emma was more stubborn now then she will be. She absolutely refuses listen to any suggestions I make to save Zoe. She wants to repeat my mistakes doing thing on her own," She continued.

"She's angry and doesn't trust you." Current Regina observed. "She's angry with me too. How can I work with her to save Zoe when she doesn't trust me either?" She asked.

"Beyond the space station incident, Emma's not really upset with me. While she doesn't trust my motives, she knows I was with her at her end so she does trust me. You are the Regina she's angry with. You are the one she doesn't trust. I can't make amends to her but you must." Future Regina revealed.

– – –

"Embrace me. After we merge we will be able to persuade her." Future Regina instructs herself.

Current Regina wanted to remain seated, refusing but she stood up. She wanted to walk away but she walked towards her future self instead. They stood face to face: Current Regina with her arms crossed over her chest and Future Regina with her arm open and ready.

"We need the balance of Emma, if we hesitate we may end up losing Zoe, Emma and Alexis." Future Regina revealed.

"Why Emma and Alexia?" Current Regina asked, concerned for their wellbeing.

"If Zoe is lost forever… Alexia will never forgive herself and then she will probably need a room next to Henry's. Emma… she would never survive if Alexia were to plummet into the same dark madness. She would blame herself for everything. Again. We both know this to be true." Future Regina predicted with eerie accuracy, her arms still open and receptive.

Hearing the potential stress all this would have on both Alexia and Emma, Current Regina walked into the embrace with herself.

The two Reginas hugged and a warm lavender light slowly grew from the center of their embrace as they joined, combining their fears, emotions, desires, consciousness, experiences, thoughts, prejudices, and flaws: all into one woman, one incredibly powerful, kickass time travelling goddess woman:

A woman who no longer needed to shield her true essence as she had done for many, many years.

A woman who no longer needed to deny parts of herself that made her nervous and comfortable.

A woman who no longer needed to cower in fear of her lost and violent son.

A woman no longer at war with herself.

A woman who needed nothing but the continuous presence of her true love to find their daughter and bring her safely home.

– – –

The first thing Regina noticed was her ability to check on her adult children still in the house with the ease of thought. Her thoughts drifted to the bedroom upstairs, wondering if they heard the confrontation she had with herself.

She discovered, her youngest was asleep in her bedroom, her second son was watching old home movies of the family on his laptop with his headphones and poor Alexia was tossing and turning on her bed.

Regina waved her hand in the air over her head sending a wave of gentle spells to quiet Alexis' mind so that she could get some much needed rest.

 _Alexis will need to show us what they did in the lab where the accident happened._ Regina decided.

 _They aren't eating._ She observed as she noticed each of her adult children had lost quite a bit of weight. She mentally invoked a spell which brought forth all sorts of fresh ready to eat food for them in the fridge when they woke up in the morning.

Once she prepared things for the kids, she sent out a mental call for Emma and what came back was a distorted jumble of loud jarring music, naked bodies and the haze of an inebriated mind.

She closed her eyes, instantly zeroing in on the energy signature that was uniquely Emma:

Emma was golden and warm like lazy summer afternoons. Emma was the cool breeze on a hot, humid day. Emma was the warmth of a fireplace on a snowy day. Emma was comfort. Emma was the laughter before and after the joke. Emma was the all the seconds and minutes in an hour, and all the moments paused in between.

 _How could I have forgotten all of that? What spell did I place myself under to go so, so long with… Emma?_ She lamented as her eyes opened in despair as she remembered all the pain that her future self endured in the absence of Emma.

 _Where is she? With Ms. Obi, I suppose._ Her thoughts drifted as she focused to locate Emma: finding her at the end of a wave of purple energy she sent out in 360 degrees. All the purple waves merged into one long, thick wave pointing to…

 _Emma was in Singapore._ Regina discovered.

She looked at the clock on the wall, _it was 1 a.m. in the morning in New York_ so she calculated that _it was 1 p.m. in the afternoon in Singapore_.

She sensed something off about Emma, she wasn't as clear headed as she usually was… _Emma was drunk in Singapore._ Regina deduced as she closed her eyes again. Drunk? Why would she sabotage forty years of sobriety?

Regina's eyes flew open when she remembered her future self recounting having found Emma in some sort of orgy in the Southeast Asian country.

Regina narrowed her eyes disapprovingly as she wiggled her fingers instructing a pen to write a note for her adult children. The note, which explained that she was off to find Emma and bring her home, affixed itself to the refrigerator door. Once that was done, she dematerialized in a hail of lavender mist, wondering _What the hell happened to Ms. Obi?_

– – –

Regina materialized inside a spacious lounge area of an executive suite on the twenty-third floor of the Hilton Singapore on Orchard Road. Obnoxious rap music riddled with obscene language was playing at deafeningly loud decibels.

With a wave of Regina's index finger, blessed silence.

"What the fuck?" A young handsome and very naked alone male yelled as he exited the bedroom, annoyed that the song he like to have sex to had been turned off.

Regina looked at his face with her hands akimbo and one raised eyebrow, she looked at his member than back up at his face, unimpressed with the offering.

"Hey she didn't say this was gonna be a five-some?" he said with a smirk as he notice the new attractive dressed woman in the suite.

"There are no such things as five-some. Couplings over three or perhaps four persons would be considered an orgy." Regina instructed the mentally limited, naked man. "I'm here for Emma."

"Who you?" He asked.

Regina cringed at the abysmal English grammar before she spat out, "Tell Emma, the mother of her children is here."

"Mother? Children?" The naked man sputtered.

"Look Sex Kitten, she didn't say she was connected… or in a situation… I'm NOT going to jail again or get beat up again over that bullshit anymore! Not worth the hassle. Lady, I just met your girl at the bar downstairs. She asked if I wanted to have some fun!" He explained in a nervous rambling way while he picked up discarded clothes: jeans that fit him, a shirt that didn't.

He quickly stuffed his sock-less feet in shoes by the door.

Regina watched as he rushed out of the suite after pilfering a full, unopened bottle of expensive sparkling wine and some fruit from the complementary fruit basket on the coffee table.

Regina blinked a bit bewildered by what just happened when two twin Asian young woman both with neon blue hair, exited the bedroom giggling, also naked as the day they were born.

 _Twins?_ Regina questioned with narrowing eyes, as the two young woman approached her and complained that she was over dressed. One of the yelled back to the bedroom that they would have preferred Regina's company to the annoying blond guy.

Frowning, Regina had to repeatedly slap their hands away as they tried to undress her. Fed up with the clear boundaries Regina had, that these naked harlots willfully ignored, Regina waved her hands dismissively and they were gone too.

There was noise from the bedroom. Something or someone fell, hard with a loud thump.

Then another naked body staggered its way into the lounge area of the suite, with unkempt blond hair: Emma.

Thought the rain forest of blond hair, Emma looked for her companions, complaining about how everyone abandons her. Emma didn't notice Regina was in the room until she heard an unmistakable clearing of a female throat.

She grimaced as she moved her errant bedhead hair away from her eyes.

She rolled her eyes at the visage of the woman who had been the someone she had been trying to forget all night long. She flopped down half missing the couch, landing on the floor. She grabbed for the open bottle of whiskey that Regina whisked out of her reach with a flick of two fingers.

"Where is everyone?" Emma complained.

"That naked gentleman took umbrage at partying with women who shared children with another. Those twins were too annoying to remain. I sent them to the National Museum," Regina confessed. "In the center of the fashion gallery." She added with a smirk.

"You still got an evil streak in you don't you?" Emma observed.

"I plead the fifth." Regina replied with a gentle smile.

"Look, future you, I just needed to blow off some steam. I'm on board with finding and rescuing Zoe. I just needed…" Emma's voice trailed off.

"You didn't come to the memorial." Regina spoke quietly, as she interrupted her.

"What?" Emma sobered up quickly.

"You didn't come to the memorial." Regina repeated a bit louder.

"No! No! Not you! I thought you were the other one!" Emma cried backing away from Regina.

"I can't face you!" She protested as she hid her face in her hands.

Regina kneeled down next to her. When she tried to touch Emma's arm, Emma flinched away. Undeterred, Regina rested her hand gently on Emma's arm. Emma tried to push her away. Regina encircled her with her arms and Emmas sobbed, "I'm so… sorry, Regina. I wasn't fast enough. I was too slow… again."

Bewildered Regina wondered what Emma was talking about when the mental connection her future self had with Emma gradually opened up and all the missing pieces fell into a clearer understanding.

– – –

She saw through Emma eyes after she met with Jax at a restaurant. They finished discussing rescheduling summer vacations with her and the twins. After they said their goodbyes, Jax left going uptown while she was going downtown. Then she felt a wave of nausea, knowing instantly Jax was in trouble: he had walking into at the violent middle of a diamond heist.

Emma instantly raced towards him, running around him deflecting the bullets shot in his direction. When the diamond thieves were stopped by the police she ducked into a subway station and jumped on a train going downtown. When she sat down she noticed one of those bullet caught her arm and screamed _GOTCHA!_

Annoyed, she healed herself, while admonishing how stupid she was _I could have been killed! Why did I save him? With him gone, Regina would be mine again. Really dumb move!_

– – –

Regina laughed as she saw Emma's memories and thoughts each time she saved and protected Jax from harm: especially the time she pushed him out of the way of a run away taxi with a hip bump.

Realizing he was spared from serious harm, Jax looked up to the heaven and said, "Thanks, Guardian Angel."

Emma rolled her eyes as she complained to herself: _I'm not up there doofus! I'm over here hiding behind the newspaper stand! What does Regina see in this cornball?_

– – –

It seemed every time Jax was in serious, life threatening trouble, Emma felt nauseous.

One on particular day, she became violently ill when she was working on reviving her band in a Seattle recording studio. She raced back to New York from Washington in her favorite blue flame form, to reach a six-story building just at the moment before the leaking gas exploded. She rushed Jax ten-blocks away, then went back to save everyone else in the building even a stray cat hidden in the basement.

 _Getting that damn cat singed my eyebrows and the little beast scratched me!_ Emma recalled.

– – –

The last time Emma was seriously nausea she was spending the day with Imani Obi, a wonderful woman she could see becoming someone permanent. When she had gotten sick, it had been so long since such feelings were attributed to Jax's ineptitude to keep himself out of harms way, so Emma ignored it.

Until the nausea knocked her off her feet, then she knew.

As she donned one of Imani's hoodies and raced towards Jax, she knew… she knew she was going to be too late… once again but she didn't stop racing towards him.

Emma got to the train accident site in New Jersey and she found him instantly in the mangled fourth car. She multiplied herself three times to have enough hands to pull him out and away from the wreckage.

She tried to heal him, placing her hands on his body where she could detect injuries but there were many, many internal ones and he was an elderly man, rebounding his health wouldn't be as effortless as he would have been at a much younger age.

Jax gently smiled at her and mouthed the words "Thank you." Then he closed his eyes.

Emma screamed in her mind. She screamed as she realized how she had utterly failed Regina once again. She pleaded with him to come back. She cursed at him, cursed at how selfish he was to die this way, leaving Regina alone. She cursed at him for being so fucking careless.

She yelled, "Not on my time! Save this shit for another day! Not on my watch!"

Then a distraught Regina materialized standing beside her, her eyes only for Jax who laid motionless on his back. After Regina tossed Emma aside to get closer to Jax, Emma dematerialized dejected and profoundly disappointed in her inability to make Regina happy once again.

– – –

Regina closed her eyes over her own silent tears as she held onto a sobbing Emma.

All the missing pieces of the puzzle of her life slipped effortlessly into place, as she opened her eyes with a new clarity. She had a new purpose but she needed confirmation, having made so many mistakes on past assumptions, "Why did you always save Jax, Emma?"

Emma looked at her, downhearted as she said, "He was your happiness, Regina. The only thing I ever wanted for you was for you to be happy."

Regina closed her eyes as she held Emma tightly against her chest. She conjured up a lightweight throw, pulling it around Emma shoulders and her legs when she felt her shivering, against her.

Holding Emma close, Regina smoothed down Emma hair and wiping the tears from her cheeks.

She realized in one exhaled breath, in all the many open and honest conversations she had with her deceased husband, he never once suggested that he step aside for her to renew her relationship with Emma, when everything from the twins to their shared magic indicated they had a deep connection with one another; a connection Regina shamefully ignored.

Selflessly, Emma stepped aside even when she didn't want to just to cater to my desires. Regina realized.

Regina gathered Emma's face, gently holding her still so that they sat on the floor of the suite facing each other. She looking into Emma sad eyes, seeing the pain she put there and asked, "Emma you have nothing to apologize for to me. I'm the one who needs to apologize to you. I'm so sorry! Please forgive me. I was selfishly foolish. I hurt you so badly. The biggest mistake I ever made was to I let your hand go when I should have held on to it with all the strength I had."

– – –

Regina sensed Emma doesn't want to be in that Singapore hotel room anymore. Reading Emma's thoughts, she dematerialized them both from the floor of the suite to a loft apartment in New York, she had never been to before.

She walked with Emma to the bedroom, after conjuring a potion to aid her is quickly metabolizing all the alcohol in her system. She conjured some pajamas for Emma and climbed into the bed with her holding her close until Emma silently fell asleep with her ear tight against Regina's chest, listening to her heartbeat.

Regina whispered, "You kept my heart safe, its time I protect yours."

– – –

They slept together for fourteen hours, waking up the next day before the sun rose. Regina woke up first. She was still holding one Emma as she slept. She felt Emma stir as she slowly woke up, bewildered by where she was and who she was with.

Emma looked up into Regina's eyes which were open, looking back at her. Then stared at each other in silence for quite a long time. Seeing in each other everything, the anger, the pain, the fear, the frustrations, the caring, the fondness, their love.

Emma blinked first and she moved out of Regina's embrace to sit up in the bed. She hugged onto her knees and legs, to center herself, as she asked "You must really need my help to save Zoe."

"I need you. Saving Zoe and bringing her home is extra, Emma." Regina quietly replied.

"You don't have say these things to me in gratitude. I'll still help with Zoe." Emma said, her insecurity showing.

"I don't want to miss you anymore. I've wasted a lot of time pushing you away." Regina replied.

Emma didn't say anything more so Regina asked, "What happened with Ms. Obi?"

Emma darted a look at Regina, disclosing softly, "She didn't want to share me with you."

"You told her about us?" Regina asked as she sat up.

"She heard all my albums. She said every song on each one sounded like sad love songs calling out for one special person. She told me I needed to stop wasting my time settling for others and go get who I really wanted but Imani didn't understand... it just wasn't that simple." Emma replied.

"I'm sorry I made things so complicated for us." Regina offered as she tentatively placed a hand on Emma's back.

"Henry made things complicated. We just had to deal with the toxic fall out. By the way, thanks for going to see him and telling him about the folks." Emma said.

"I'm not here to talk about Henry. I'm here…" Regina began to admit.

"For Zoe," Emma interrupted.

"I'm here for you, Emma." Regina confessed as she continued to rub Emma's back.

Emma looked sheepishly at Regina who recited the lyrics of the song from Emma's May I?, "May I color you with all my thoughts? May I take away the fears of yesterday? I can't explain why I let this go so far off track. May I take your pain away? May I show you the universe I see inside of you?"

Emma felt a strong tug as Regina pulled on her pajama top, pulling Emma back towards her. Emma hated her tears as they fell once more.

Regina whispered, "I missed you" before she kissed Emma greedily.

Kissing Regina was like breathing to Emma. Their kisses escalated as they embraced, falling back on the bed... together.

– – –

When Emma and Regina recount the Singapore event, their official story is: It took eight hours for Emma to sober up and they defy anyone who disputes that.


	5. Chapter 5: The Auditory Hallucinations

**Chapter Five –** **The Auditory Hallucinations of Sibling Rivalries**

Henry slowly wheeled himself to the recreational room to engage in one of his favorite activities, staring at the perfect wall. If one of the attendings approached to speak to him, he would ignore them because the perfect wall was just about everything to him.

Unless it was the pretty Dr. Lewis who wanted to speak to him. He liked her and enjoyed listening to her voice but she only came around one in a while.

– – –

Then it was the second meal of the day, which he truly hated because this place had nothing edible. The first meal of the day was marginally the best meal because it consisted of the drugs for the day then a choice of tasteless egg mush or toast with a buttery oil. He always opted for the toast which he slathered in honey others used in their tea and the buttery oil. It reminded him of those awesome breakfasts he had so many years ago.

Gosh, Mom could cook! He remembered as his drug dry salivary gland woke up. The lost of those amazing breakfasts was punishment enough, he grumbled to himself.

He never ate the garbage they served for the third and final meal of the day.

During the second meal of the day, he often refused the stuff they served because it tasted awful. They never served burgers or pizza in this hell hole, he complained.

 _It was like the people who cooked for this place had a deep hatred for anything sandwich like,_ his complaints grew.

The daily lunch menu was nuked, tasteless chicken or some other meat-like substance which he suspected was an experimental food product. Accompanying the questionable protein source was a mound of either an orange, red or purple vegetable substance and a heap of green goop, also of the vegetable variety.

 _Yuck_ , he thought.

– – –

After the second meal of the day he could go to the library, which he avoided like the plague. He hated with all those lie spewing, traitorous books. He could also go back to the recreational room to watch TV or play a game.

 _The TV shows were a joke._ He recalled.

They were always these old boring, slow moving shows probably broadcasted before Henry was born, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Simplistic westerns where no one ever pulled out a gun and shot anyone or these stupid melodramatic soap operas where the stories never progressed past some girl crying at the end of the episode.

All the girls cried on those soap operas or they schemed on each other and then cried about it afterwards. Between the scheming and the crying, Henry couldn't understand why the crying/scheming girls were considered interesting enough to show their story-less stories.

– – –

Henry played games instead.

They had checkers, which Henry always won, which got old quick and chess, but there was no one here besides Henry who know how to play, not even the doctors.

Mom taught him knew how to play chess when he was six years old.

They had Clue, Monopoly and Candy Land board games but those games were missing some of the pieces and it was difficult to gather up enough drugged out inmates to play and pay attention to the game at the same time.

They had a battleship game which Henry liked to play until he beat this big bald muscular guy who didn't take his loss very well. Being in a wheelchair and having that magic thing Emma put inside his head made Henry nervous that the guy was gonna kill him and there was nothing he would be able to do about it.

It took two orderlies and three armed guards to subdue the big bald muscular guy.

Henry later learned that guy murdered his entire family: his father, mother, and his two younger brothers when he was thirteen. Henry didn't learn why the sore loser off'ed his entire family.

He wondered if the big bald muscular guy lost during a family game night and took his revenge.

He did overhear that the sore loser guy was in this place for life and that the guy was much older than him. Discovering those things and many more about all the other guys locked up in this place was a sobering revelation for Henry, who insisted, for years, he didn't belong in this place.

 _Maybe I do,_ Henry considered.

It took him years to realize the reason Emma would never let him see his Mom was because he had succeeded in hurting Mom so long ago… he succeeding in killing her and there was nothing he could do to change it. Nothing he could do to bring her back.

After he admitted this truth to himself, his Mom would visit him but she'd never talk to him. She'd just stare, disappointed at him. So he talked to her. He'd tell her he was sorry for what he did and wished he could take it all back. He'd tell her how much he missed her and her amazing breakfasts. Her hugs. Her everything, all gone over some stupid fairy tales he stupidly believed in.

In the quiet of the night, when he laid in his bed, he'd admitted to her that maybe he shouldn't have found his birth mother after he learned he was adopted.

He was just so angry Mom had lied to him. Well,… not lied exactly but not told him everything.

She would just stare at him with her disapproving eyes and he'd cry because he realized a salient truth about his circumstance: He was never leaving this place.

– – –

Between the awful food and his mother's angry stares, Henry knew he was in hell, a hell from which he would never escape and no one was coming to rescue him.

Then one day, quite recently, his Mom visited and spoke to him! Actually spoke to him! His Mom came to him with an elderly man by her side. She gave him news from the world of the dead, that those traitors Snow White and her stupid Prince Charming were finally dead.

 _Good riddance!_ He thought.

After his Mom told him that news, he later realized when she had gone away again, that he wasted so many opportunities. _If Mom was so powerful that she could communicate with me from the dead, she could have probably taught me magic too_ , he lamented.

Then he thought he did a lot better than Emma. His mom's omissions weren't as awful as Snow's. Emma gave him up to have his best chance while Snow gave up Emma to save herself.

 _I will regret listening to those two liars until the day I die,_ Henry promised himself.

– – –

After the second meal of the day, was the psychiatric counseling sessions.

When he was first placed here, the liars that ran this place told him if he was honest and expressed his feelings that one day he would be able to leave this place. He knew they were telling lies. The magic thing Emma put in his head told him:

 _Don't trust anyone in here._ The Magic Head Voice advised.

So he didn't.

Those head doctors would look at him with the same disappointment his dead Mother did when he refused to communicate with them. He didn't care because they were so full of crap. They acted like they didn't realize the drugs they constantly prescribed for him made the world a fuzzy, numb place, where he was unable to focus on any thoughts, let alone honest ones.

Those drugs made drooling easy and talking difficult. Henry recalled.

– – –

Then something radical happened because the drugs weren't so strong and a lot of the head doctors and guards left never to return, replaced by new, kinder people, like the nice Dr. Lewis, who Henry wished came around more often.

And Emma visited a lot more, too.

He sort of vaguely remembered Emma always coming to visit before but Henry wasn't quite sure about it. When the drugs and staff of this hellish place changed, he could clearly remember her visits.

She even tried to play chess with Henry but she was a crap chess player.

Initially Henry was still pissed off at Emma. So beyond beating her controlling ass at chess, he wanted nothing to do with his birth mother but Emma still came to visit him regardless and he gradually accepted how comforting it was to have someone come to see him at a place where most of the inmates never had visitors.

Hard to have visitors when you bump off everyone you know, he joked darkly with himself.

He once told Emma that joke when he started speaking to her again and she smirked. She actually smirked then said things tend to improve a bit when you can joke about the dark crap you've done.

– – –

 _I wish I had magic,_ he admitted only to himself. _Revealing that during the session would have just added more years to my sentence_ , he realized.

For years, Henry resented that he didn't inherit magic from Emma. He hated being so ordinary while being around extraordinary people. Maybe that envy is what got me into so much trouble, I wanted to be special like Emma and I wasn't special at all, he concluded.

 _Just a regular old killer like the rest of the bums in this place,_ he joked with himself.

He smiled as he realized Emma was right about taking the piss out of yourself over the horrible crap you do: It was kinda cathartic.

– – –

He initially hated the magic she put inside him. Then when the effects of the drugs lessened he began to take comfort in the fact that she was always with him through her magic in his head.

And it was like he sort of had magic too, so he never told any of the doctors about its presence.

– – –

When Emma visited, Henry began to notice that nothing changed about Emma. She always looked the same but he was getting older and older losing his hair. He wasn't a boy or a young man any more. The days, the month and years seem to only effect him, she was immune. He initially thought she was a ghost too since she always looked the same.

He became despondent that she wasn't really visiting him. He had mistakenly believed she was dead too and that he was going to stay in the place for the rest of his life. Then she slapped him upside his head when he had a sadness hissy fit, which shocked him… and her!

Then they laughed.

 _Mom who was dead never laughed, so Emma who never ages had to still be alive. And the head slap really hurt!_ He deduced.

That made him smile when he was alone in his bed at night.

He slowly began to understand how disturbed Emma had to have been when she found her parents and they were younger than she was! Now she looked younger than him!

 _How long have I been in this place?_ He wondered as he realized his stubbornness wasted so many years. If he wasn't crazy that reality could have seriously pushed him over the edge of sanity.

 _But surprisingly it didn't,_ he hoped.

So he enjoyed his wall staring. His wall of perfection. A space free from defects and flaws that he could slip into.

– – –

When Henry tried to entered the recreation room, he was prevented from doing so by guards and wet paint signs.

To his utter horror and despair, he witnessed a maintenance worker, of this hellish place, repainting the entire room a pastel peach color instead the stark white it used to be.

The wall of perfection was now not only the absolutely wrong color, it had dimples and painting artifacts in it!

Henry was upset that they changed the only perfect thing in this place that gave him a sense of peace and that there was nothing he could do about it. He fumed as the voice in his head advised him to:

 _Let it go. It's not that big a deal, Nimrod!_

He didn't like the name calling from the magic in his head either. That seems to be a new occurrence he could totally do without! So he ignored the magic in the head advice and schemed how to get back what was taken from him.

– – –

The next day when he wheeled himself into the recreation room, he wheeled himself to the marred wall. He covertly picked and peeled off the dry paint and attacked the concrete plaster underneath, creating big gaping holes.

He smiled when the following day the same maintenance worker had to come back to re-plaster and repaint that wall, the same stupid color.

– – –

For weeks he and that maintenance worker had a battle of wills over that wall, Henry would covertly destroy it and the worker would begrudgingly fix and repaint it.

Over those weeks, his dead Mom visited once again without the elderly man. She didn't speak as much, so Henry thought there was no new news from the world of the dead.

He reluctantly confided in her about his war over the lost of his wall of perfection. That revelation seemed to provoke this strange look on her face the rest of the visit.

Henry didn't mind. It was a comfort that she took time from being dead to seek out his company for a short spell.

– – –

The day after Mom visited from the dead, an agitated Emma visited him as well and told him to stop vandalizing the place.

He wondered, _Why'd I spill the beans?_

He didn't agree with Emma assessments because he was in hell. _What did it matter if I destroyed hell a little bit?_ He thought.

Emma tried to explain to him the worker doesn't need to be constantly fixing stuff he keeps breaking.

He countered the worker could leave this place and get an another job, he was stuck there. Since he was stuck there that worker had no right to take away the one thing which gave him some peace of mind.

 _Peace of mind is a luxury in hell_ , he thought.

 _Who are you telling?_ The magic in his head concurred.

– – –

A day after the visits from his Moms, that singular wall was perfectly sized, no dimpling, no flaws and was the only wall in the room painted a brilliant bright white!

Henry was so happy he got his precious wall back be began participating more in the behavior modification techniques in his counseling sessions. He particularly like the meditation techniques, because they gave him the same peace of mind as when he did his wall staring.

– – –

 _Now that your dumb wall crap is settled can we work on my issues now, Nimrod?_ The Magic Head Voice inquired.

Henry was in the midst of meditating to deal with his anger and impatience of having to wait his turn after a long line of eager inmates to speak with Dr. Lewis, when the magic voice in his head spoke to him again.

 _Stop calling me, Nimrod,_ he admonished the magic voice.

 _Stop being a dick and help a sister out! I helped you, you big Dummy. Quid pro quo._ The Magic Head Voice demanded.

 _How did you help me? And stop calling me names, that's just rude!_ He complained.

 _I pushed you to divulge about that stupid war of the wall you engaged in. You were content to keep that idiocy secret. Once you told the Moms, things got better didn't they?_ The Magic Head Voice revealed.

Henry grumbled to himself, _Leave me allow. I'm meditating._

 _It took you so long for you to see the merits in meditation, I had to resort to lesser ways to communicate with you._ The Magic Head Voice complained.

 _Why are you talking to me now?_ He asked.

 _I need your help. You gotta tell the Moms I'm still kicking but I'm stuck._ The Magic Head Voice said.

 _Stuck where?_ He asked.

 _I'm not really sure where. Just that I need to get out of here._ The Magic Head Voice said.

 _Why should I help you escape your prison when I can't escape mine?_ Henry asked.

 _You put yourself in this stupid place. I didn't ask to be in here!_ The Magic Head Voice replied.

 _Emma put you in my head so take your grievances up with her!_ Henry argued.

 _She didn't put me in your head. I'm using the magic she put inside of your head to speak with you._ The Magic Head Voice revealed.

 _Who the hell are you? Snow White? If so, you can go straight to hell! On second thought, I don't want you here, go to some other horrible place! There is no room for you here, Grandma!_ Henry bitterly argued.

 _I'm not Grammy, Nimrod!_ The Magic Head Voice taunted.

 _Stop calling me Nimrod! He demanded. If the hallucinatory voices in your head don't respect you, it's a slippery slope to crazy town!_ Henry worried.

 _You're not crazy! I've been roaming around in your head, quite curious about you and I can tell you without hesitation: You are an arrogant, impatient, selfish, entitled jerk but not crazy… yet. Besides, I can call you anything I want! After what you did to me!_ The Magic Head Voice taunted.

 _Get in line magic voice! I've hurt a lot of people._ Henry taunted back.

 _Yeah, the Moms, mostly._ The Magic Head Voice said.

 _They are my Moms, not yours!_ He argued.

 _Tough shit Nimrod, they're my Moms too!_ The Magic Head Voice replied.

 _Who the hell are you?_ He asked.

 _Your sister, Zoe. Listen we don't have much time, Henry. One or both of the Moms are gonna visit you tomorrow. Tell them Zoe says hello and… she really, really would like to come home now… because the place I'm trapped in… is way scarier than where you are. Once you tell them, they will know what to do._ Zoe revealed through the magic from their Mom in his head, as she communicated from a hellish dimension.


	6. Chapter 6: param in heavenOST

**Chapter Six –** **param in .GHOST(): find(ZoeOPERATOR)**

In a small pocket, tucked off of a maze of caves, Zoe was crouched, listening.

Listening to the deep breathing and scraping that always seemed to come closer to her position, no matter which direction she ran and hid.

She initially thought that she was seriously injured from the bright explosion of light that unexpectantly occurred in the lab where she worked with her sister. She thought she was in a hospital, recovering in a coma, dreaming this nightmarish world.

Until she had gotten injured: something chasing her almost caught her twice.

Whatever was chasing her, its sharp talons or claws… she hoped it was not teeth. Whatever was chasing her, had gotten hold of her right arm. She was attempting to throw a fireball like Mommy did when she secretly practiced her magic.

Whatever it was, it broke her skin trying to stop her, causing her to bleed.

Zoe had to rip off parts of her blouse to wrap the wound, after cleaning it with her own saliva, in a car-like fashion. She tried to use magic to shield herself but the magic worked strangely here: she wanted to hide but the spell created multiples of herself instead.

Short hers, tall hers, fat hers, skinny hers.

So many hers, thousands in fact, that she stumbled over her various dopplegangers multiple times when she ran from the darkness that was chasing after her as soon as she slipped into this strange world of endless caves.

The multiple versions of herself allowed her the breathing room to try to contact someone to help her escape these dark caves. The very first person she was able to speak to was that disturbing man/boy Henry, who tried to hurt Mother and her sister, Alexis.

She was surprised to find her other's mother's magic in his head. She discovered it because she was thinking about Emma when its presence burned bright like a distant beckon of hope.

At first she was reluctant to speak to him, lurking in the recesses of his mind. She discovered he wasn't insane as she believed just very anger, very confused and quickly losing hope. Instead of him being able to help her, she forced upon him a recurring meme: _Hold on_.

She didn't think he would be of any help himself considering his poor decision making. But being scratched or perhaps bitten, compelled her to contact him–a feat of frustration because he only heard the phantoms of his own anxieties and fuzzy confused thoughts.

 _The drugs they are giving him are too strong,_ Zoe realized.

She manipulated his body through her magic to quickly metabolize the pharmacopeia he took daily to assist in clearing his mind. Then he had these absurd obsessions which she found infuriating.

 _I could be killed in this place or turn into a flesh eating zombie and my stupid big brother is worried about a stupid wall? Really?_ She complained to herself.

Using her magic on a clearer mind, she compelled him to tell Mommy about the dumb wall crap when she visited. She cried with joy when she faintly sensed her presence but she felt defeated that she couldn't interact directly with her.

So she spoke to him, like she did before not expecting much and he heard her!

 _Thank goodness he finally started meditating_ , she celebrated inside her many selves.

Like siblings through out space and time Zoe and Henry fought, bickering for control over his thoughts, for dominance over his consciousness, until she revealed her true self to him.

He was dumbfounded. He didn't believe she was really real but when he was convinced she was he refused to help her.

Zoe retaliated first singing songs that used to annoy Alexis when they were kids, then she resorted to nasty tricks like making him incontinent at the most inopportune times of the day.

 _If he wants to act like a big baby… so be it. Let's see how fashionably he can rock some diapers_. She thought in dark desperation.

She was truly Regina's daughter.

– – –

When Zoe escaped the caves, she climbed metal staircase for an eternity until she found herself on what seemed like the first floor of an empty, windowless shopping mall, which seemed to have a basement of endless caves.

The shopping mall was filled with lot of things displayed: clothes, household appliances or what she suspected were appliance one would use in a house. None of it was familiar. There were rows and rows of strange electronic things but curiously there wasn't any prices on anything for sale and no abandoned cash registers.

"Probably set up to trick you into shoplifting. I saw a movie that started something like this once…" Zoe had begun giving Henry a running commentary of her observations, hoping that once he got off his ass and told their Moms, the information she compiled would help the Moms locate her.

While the songs annoyed him to the point of making him crack, speaking to him held off the overwhelming feelings of loneliness.

There were times when she recounted what she had seen so far and Henry listened quietly without any disparaging commentary that she could imagine she was raised with him and he was as good a friend as her twin Alexis.

– – –

The thing chasing her caught almost all of her thousands of duplicated, closing in on the real her. She pleaded with Henry to help but he stubbornly refused. One bright spot in the change of her location in this strange world was she could finally slip inside the dreams of her twin sister, Alexis.

She found that Alexis was plagued with nightmares fueled from her misplaced guilt. In those dreams, Zoe discovered their dad had died in an accident not too far from the laboratory where she disappeared. She tried to sooth her sister but in those dreams her actions and words were confusing and jumbled, even to herself.

 _She doesn't realize, I'm really here_ , Zoe understood dejectedly.

She barely had time to grieve the lost of her Dad when she ran for her life to the only elevator she could find, pushing every manner of buttons to escape the encroaching darkness. Even as the elevator ascended, something was trying to tear its way through the metal floor of the elevator car.

While the elevator seems to ascend forever, when the doors opened she found herself on only the fourth level of a building, which was the vast floor of an abandoned hospital surrounded by floor to ceiling windows.

She ran to the windows and looked outside: she was no where near her home, her planet even. In the vast velvet darkness, far from distant binary suns setting in the horizon, Zoe watched the crimson lights reflected from the twin setting suns dance along the surface of a thick ocean of yellow plasma.

Yellow plasma that was everywhere.

Wherever Zoe was, this place was almost entirely covered with the yellow fluid-like material. She deduced that the caves and building she was currently in existed on a large island land mass. None of these factoids gave her any clues as to where she was exactly nor how to escape.

When the suns completely set, and all was dark. The hospital floor which was clean and modern, quickly changed to one that was neglected, rusted, abandoned–like every horrific cliche from a horror movie.

Zoe's fear had no problem demanding that Henry tell the Moms and was unrepentantly prepared to do whatever was necessary when he refused, yet again.

– – –

Since Singapore, Emma avoided Regina after she woke up next to her in her secret loft apartment. It was a top floor, three bedroom, two bathroom, 22 feet high ceiling loft with a private roof garden which Emma found when her band became really popular and she was looking for a spot in New York to be closer to the twins.

It was her dream apartment.

Emma brought the loft apartment entertaining the fantasy of living there with Regina one day. She daydreamed raising the twins to adulthood there with Regina.

She had it modestly decorated thinking that Regina would prefer to put her personal taste into it and hired a regular cleaning staff to keep it neat and dust free.

Her move in day never came.

While Emma always paid the taxes and kept the cleaning service, she never moved in and conveniently forgot about the place–until it popped into her mind briefly when Regina comforted her stupid, drunken self in that hotel room.

 _Whoever said threesomes are awesome, is a lying asshole,_ Emma complained.

 _I needed the alcohol just to tolerate those people. Alcohol can be a friend when it provides the blessings of forgetful blackouts. Then I wake up THERE remembering every moment of fuckery! I never told nor took anyone to that pathetic apartment but Regina must have sensed in me, it was a safe place. That's why she took us there,_ Emma's thoughts concluded.

 _Could I be anymore pathetic? Then to wake up next to Regina…_ Emma berated herself after she realized once again Regina witness the foolish end of her long sobriety. She regretted having never sold the place, disgusted with herself.

 _I should have left as soon as I realized where she took us,_ she berated herself.

 _Kissing her… can stop time, s_ he remembered a few more details.

 _Don't think about that! Zoe. That's who I need to focus on!_ Emma advised herself.

Her cellphone rang.

She was about to decline the call thinking it was Regina again when she noticed the caller was Blue, the head of the fairies from the Enchanted Forest, who stayed in Storybrooke at the convent all these years.

– – –

Emma materialized in Storybrooke, outside the gates of the convent. The old town still thrived but with newer people, mostly lots of young families and a few retirees. Emma knew a few of the formerly cursed residents returned to the Enchanted Forest: mostly the other royalty and aristocrats returned: the so-called peasants never looked back, either settling in Storybrooke for good or they moved away to explore the rest of the world.

Emma entered the grounds of the convent to discover all the Nuns / Fairies hadn't aged in decades either. One of the fairies, delighted to see Emma after all these years hugged her fondly. The hug lingering a bit too long for Emma, to remain solidly in the friend zone as hugs go.

"That's enough, Fawn. I'll take Emma to Mother Superior from here. Why don't you gather the rest of sisters for afternoon yoga?" suggested the tall, dark haired, serious Fairy Nun.

Fawn rushed off excited she saw Emma before all the others.

The serious looking Nun / Fairy, spoke further, "Don't mind Fawn. All the fairy's seem to have a major crush on the exceptionally, legendary Emma Swan. Each one here has every album you produced, even that rare one with all the B-sides from Japan."

"Except you," Emma smirked.

"I'm Nyx, the Head Guardian of the Convent. Follow me. I'll take you to Blue," Nyx replied then gestured for Emma to follow her.

"When did the Nuns need security?" Emma asked as she noticed the various security improvement to the interior of the grounds on their walk to Blue's private office.

"After we all could do this," Nyx spoke then she exposed her golden wings. With her hands on her hips and her wings free, Nyx explained, "When our wings returned decades ago and we could all fly again outside of the Enchanted Forest. The sisters needed to beef up security to keep the curious out. Especially during yoga classes. Fairy Yoga is a whole new world of magical practice that keeps me and my staff on my toes."

When they reached Blue's office, Nyx knocked on the door and Emma heard Blue say, "Send Emma in. Thank you Nyx."

Emma entered the office to find Blue with her brilliant blue fairy wings fully extended. She wore a light blue yoga outfit with her feet bear and not her Nun habit.

"Things have certainly changed around here," Emma observed.

Blue hugged Emma fondly, which made Emma feel awkward because Blue wasn't so affectionate in the past. Emma hoped Blue didn't have a crush on her as well because that would really be awkward.

"Relax, Savior. Your virtue is safe with me," Blue flirted.

"No one has called me that in years and I don't miss it. As for my virtue, that old hag died a thousand deaths eons ago," Emma said.

"Emma I know you. Truly know you. There is your projection of yourself for the world and then the real you. As I said, your virtue is safe here." Blue revealed with a gentle smile.

"Why did you need to speak to me?" Emma asked as she cleared her throat.

"Rumple," Blue answered.

"What about him?"

"He may have been the catalyst to the catastrophe that claimed lives in New Jersey. Rumple has barely held on to his sanity since the death of Belle. His instability erupted into destructive magic. He is obsessed with finding away to travel through time to get Belle back. This is why I have fortified Storybrooke from anymore visitors like the one who sought you out so many years ago. Did you ever discover why he came looking for you?" Blue asked.

"I sorted it," Emma replied not wanting to divulge Regina's secret.

Blue sensed the lack of Emma's trust so she offered her a heartfelt apologized, "Emma I am sorry I didn't protect you better. I told Tink to leave Regina alone, to stop helping her find love."

"Why? Why would you want Regina to continue suffering?" Emma exclaimed.

"Because her true love wasn't born yet! While the man with the lion tattoo was a soulmate, one of many in her lifetime, he wasn't her true love. The Evil Queen's true love was destined for great pain and heartbreak. I never wanted that for you Emma! We were all counting on you to rescue us. To have you endure that pain too, was too much! I was furious when Tink, interfered. She was too headstrong and never listened to wisdom, thinking that she always knew better," Blue complained.

"What the hell are true loves anyway? Why would anyone want any of that with all the trouble it causes?" Emma asked.

"Love is an energy which radiates, existing everywhere, filling empty spaces of low resistance, like water. True love, the rarest of loves, is a special sort of radiant energy that few people know and understand. It can be fathomless to even fairies. But I have observed the effects of this special love for over a millennia, because my mind is open to its existence. True Love is like a meditation, it exalts each beloved to their highest potential. True love is medicinal: it is the light in the dark of desperation which calms worried minds. True love is the essence of magic. It brings forth the goodness in your spirit and the kindness of your heart," Blue explained.

"Can true love lighten a dark heart?" Emma asked.

"Always."

"I suppose I should one day apologize to the Evil… I mean Regina," Blue corrected herself when she saw the annoyance sit on Emma's face. "I once contemplated bringing Regina under my influence. The young Queen was too passionate–easily driven to anger and violence. She needed guidance. However, Rumple placed a spell upon me that made Regina repellant to me," she added.

"He had other purposes for her and he didn't want you to mess them up," Emma deduced.

"Exactly."

"I wondered why I never aged. Regina seems immune to time too. But I never thought you fairies would also be immune to aging," Emma observed.

"It's the effect of magic in this world. Magic had been supplanted by science, relegated to superstition and myth in this world. You Emma, somehow brought magic back, in a big way when you fought that strange creature. We fairies have studied this world and realize no matter how rational the people here profess to be, they are most dangerous in the face of that which they don't understand and when they feel threatened by anything different, alien. Hence our security forces headed by Nyx, whom you've met." Blue explained.

"How can I find and save Zoe?" Emma asked.

"You and your daughter share magic. You should easily find her through that connection," Blue suggested.

She cautioned, "Emma where you eventually find Zoe may be a world where balance must be restored as the rules of balance dictate, such as in the land of Oz. If one enters, one and only one can exit: an equal exchange."

"I think I understand what I need to do. Thanks Blue. I really appreciate everything," Emma said as a possible solution to Zoe's dilemma, crystalized in her mind.

– – –

After meeting with Blue in Storybrooke, Emma returned to the laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, where Alexia has been working hard to reproduce the same events that caused her step father's train to derail and make Zoe disappear.

"I've been running this experiment over numerous iterations and I still haven't seen the level that we saw when Dad… when Zoe disappeared," Alexis complained when she sensed her other mother's presence in the laboratory.

Alexis had been working in the lab for the past week, alone, trying to duplicate the events in a controlled environment that caused Zoe to disappear to no avail.

"I dreamt of Zoe again last night! Zoe and I had to present our findings to the funding committee but she was naked and she needed to find new clothing. All of her clothes were stored in file cabinets in various office buildings all over the city. We had to travel back and forth to different neighborhoods to assemble her outfit. We found her a nice blouse and a skirt but something kept burning the clothes once we found them. Zoe was distraught. I think she really in trouble Mom!" Alexis rambled. "We have to find her! I can't face Mommy knowing what I did and not fixing it! She must hate me!" Alexia added.

"Your mother doesn't hate you. You weren't responsible for this… Rumple was," Emma revealed.

"What?"

"After Belle died, he's been experimenting with time travel magic," Emma revealed as she looked over the complex apparatus Alexis was working on.

"If time travel is the missing catalyst then we need Mommy!" Alexia exclaimed.

"We aren't going to bother your Mother. She has other things to deal with," Emma said.

"She's worried about you," Alexis revealed.

"Don't worry about your mother and I. We're fine," Emma replied.

"Come on! Once I became an adult I wasn't blind to how you felt about Mommy. Why are you running away from what you've always wanted? She's free now!" Alexia complained.

"Contrary to popular belief, I didn't want your mother at the expense of her husband… your father… her happy ending. I'm a poor substitute, Kid. Regina deserves better than a recovering alcoholic with trust issues," Emma shot back. Alexia lowered her head. Emma sighed then lifted her daughter eyes to meet her own with a gentle tug on the younger woman chin.

"I never had much to teach you girls about life because honestly life has been a constant struggle for me. How could I instruct you, Zoe or Henry when I probably had less knowledge than any of you did? Over the past few weeks, I have finally accepted a truth about myself. A truth I have run from all my life. Sometimes we wish we could be something other than ourselves, spending our time, energy and resources to make the impossible, possible. Few succeed because the truth, the real truth is, you can't run from yourself and your purpose. You can't run from who you are at your core. Number two, you are a seeker of knowledge. It's who you are down to your DNA. Always stay true to that, your core self. Promise me you never forget that," Emma said staring deeply into her daughter familiar face trying to memorize all the details, that equals Alexis.

"Number two? Mom, how did you know I was born second?" Alexis joked.

"I didn't know which one of you was born first… until right now," Emma said with a loving smile. She hugged Alexis, inhaling her scent, the smell of memories taking Emma back to the first time she held her daughter, when she was eight years old.

"Don't worry, Zoe is coming home," Emma spoke with a confident wink after they ended their embrace. Alexis continued to stare at the space her other mother occupied long after she dematerialized, wondering what she should tell Mommy, if anything.

– – –

Henry was sleeping when that girl screamed at him from inside his head, waking him up.

He was pissed.

Sleep, good long restorative, dreamless sleep was hard to come by in this hell hole, so when she demanded once again he tell the Moms, he told her to fuck off.

Perhaps not the right choice of words because that girl did something scary to him. He felt himself being slowly pulled into the small bit of magic in his mind. When he realized what was happening to him, his attempts to hold onto the bed linen, the bed posts, anything was too late!

It was painful to be pulling into such a tight space, he felt the tightening and squeezing as he was being forcibly drawn into… where?

The last thing he feared was permanent blindness because while his body seem able to be condensed into a thin stream, his eyes seemed to resist the physical distortion. He feared his eyes were going to pop, then there goes seeing, ever again.

When he arrived wherever that girl pulled him, he found himself in an old abandoned hospital ward. The paint was peeling off the ceiling and walls. Furniture and equipment laid on the floor discarded and covered with which gray dust.

He finally saw the annoying girl, who was a young woman actually. A young woman who looked a lot like Emma but her had the familiar narrowing of her eyes and brow that reminded him of his Mom.

He began to cry then realized while the girl was older, he was younger, much younger–the young woman kneeled down on one knee in front of him.

Before he could yell at her demanding she reverse what she did, the both reacted when they heard something. Something scraping along the walls and floor, coming straight for them.

Zoe grabbed Henry's hand, pulling as she instructed him to, "RUN!"

– – –

Emma was practicing magic that could open small pockets in time when she heard Henry: He was screaming for his life!

Even though she believed it was one of his many nightmares, she rushed to the mental institution in blue flame form. When she reached the hospital prison, the grounds were quiet and all the inmates were in their rooms, supposedly asleep.

Emma easily entered the facility unseen by any surveillance camera and silently entered Henry's locked room.

She found him laying on the bed, on his back staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. She called out to him to wake him, discovering that he was catatonic. She noticed that the hair on his head was completely white as was his eyebrows.

Stumped for an explanation, Emma looked around the small cell for clues why Henry was in this state when she noticed the following sentence scratched all over the four walls and the metal door: Zoe says hi.

– – –

Emma tried everything, pleading, slapping, water in the face: nothing revived a wide-eyed, Henry. The fact that he was still alive, breathing was the only conciliation.

Frustrated, Emma tried to force her way into Henry's mind with a penetrating spell at the tip of a pointed finger, when her hand was prevented from reaching inside Henry's head to tweak the magic already there by Regina's hand that materialized out of thin air.

"Are you ready to stop acting like an idiot and talk to me?" Regina asked still holding onto Emma's hand.

Emma tried to pull her finger away but Regina doesn't let her.

"Regina!" Emma shouted.

"Emma!" Regina replied at equal volume.

"Now that we know who we both are, why are you trying to do this alone? I told you that was a recipe for failure," Regina reminded her.

"Just because you merged with your future self doesn't mean you know all and see all, Regina!" Emma retorted.

"I didn't say that I did," Regina replied. She looked at Henry's still body, disturbed by the premature white hair and eyebrows. "That didn't happen before," she observed.

She finally let go of Emma's finger as she examined Henry. He was still breathing. His eyes were wide open and they were moving like he was seeing something, something neither woman could see.

"If you had pushed into his head you would have caused Henry permanent trauma which could damage his brain," Regina diagnosed as she sensed the magic Emma had placed inside, many years ago.

"I know a more gentle spell where we don't actually enter his physical mind but his consciousness," Regina offered as she extended and open hand. Emma looked it then reluctantly she took Regina's hand.

– – –

Regina and Emma materialized in a facsimile of Henry's old bedroom in the mansion in Storybrooke. They found a ten year old Henry, sitting cross legged on his old bed, ripping pages out of the story book Snow gave him when she was her cursed self, Mary Blanchard.

Regina and Emma waded through an ankle thick layer of torn fairy tale pages all over his bedroom floor as they approached his bed.

"Make it stop!" Henry shouted as she continued to tear out pages.

"Make what stop?" Emma asked.

"Zoe, make her stop singing that stupid song, I want to rip my brains out if I hear those lyrics one more time!" Henry complained.

"How do you know about Zoe?" Regina asked.

"She keeps singing these god awful songs. She wants me to tell you she needs to escape from wherever the hell she is and full disclosure, I told her no. After all the crap she's put me through, why should I do her any favors?" Henry wondered aloud.

"What did Zoe say?" Regina asked.

Henry stopped ripping out pages, titled his head to the side as his eyes drifted back and forth between the Moms.

"So, those two girls... The ones who looked like Emma…" Henry stumbled around the question he wanted to ask as he resumed page ripping.

"The girls you drugged, kidnapped and threatened to kill if she didn't speak with you," Emma reminded him of the short list of offenses that landed him a double decade long sentence in the Portland Mental Institution, as she gestured towards Regina with a tilt of her own head.

Henry grimaced. He stopped ripping the pages out of the book again, looked up at Emma then asked, "They were really your kids and my sisters? My half sisters who both have magic?"

"Stop stalling Henry and tell Regina what she said! Or would you like to revisit the inability to talk and move at the same time?" Emma threatened.

"Emma, you already traumatized me with all those multiple yous!" Henry accused.

"I only did that two times," Emma said dismissively.

"Two times too many. I thought I was going crazy. Why did you give them magic and not me?" He asked.

"Your father doesn't have magic," Emma replied.

"So Mom… was their mom too. Like really, she really was their Mom?" He attempted to process new information.

"Yes, Henry. You electrocuted your mother when she was pregnant with the twins," Emma revealed.

"Wait a minute... If she was... How were they born after she died?" Henry asked bewildered that his mother might not actually be dead as he thought.

"I survived," Regina answered.

"But you visited me all those times and didn't say anything!" He accused.

"I've only visited you twice. Any other times you thought you saw me were probably your conscience and your imagination conjuring me up," Regina replied.

"Why didn't you want to see me?" He cried.

"I was furious with you for what you did and… I was afraid of you," Regina revealed.

"The evil queen was afraid of me?" Henry laughed incredulously.

"She's not that person anymore, don't call her that!" Emma warned.

"She's still a part of me and yes I was afraid of you, Henry. I feared your rejection, your hatred, your destructiveness, and the effects of your eventually desolation when what you've done finally hit you," Regina replied.

"If you feared me, why would you ever visit me?" Henry said dejectedly.

"I no longer fear you," Regina admitted.

"Mom?" Henry asked with a growing fear in his heart.

"Henry there are two types of people in existence, two basic types. Those who believe the only people of merit are those they share DNA with and others who base the merit of people on the barest criteria of mutual love, trust and respect. Our situation suggests I was deluded. Your act showed me the truth about you and I, Henry," Regina said.

"What truth?" Henry asked.

"I stopped being your Mom, in your eyes, when you discovered you were adopted. For me, you were always my son, your biology didn't matter to me. For you, Henry, biology trumps everything."

"Mom, I was tricked. Those liars told me you were dangerous and needed to be gotten rid of!" Henry disclosed.

"Did your grandparents specifically tell you to handle getting rid of me?" Regina asked.

"No," Henry replied softly.

"Even as the Evil Queen, I can think of many ways to get rid of a person… without killing them," Regina lectured.

"You tried to kill Emma with that apple tart!" Henry accused.

"I tried to put Emma in a deep sleep only her true love could wake her from. I knew it was a temporary fix while I regrouped because experience had shown me time and time again that heroes always have true loves," Regina revealed with an eye roll of exasperation.

Henry thought about what she revealed then observed, "You planned to put her under a spell only you could break."

"What makes you say that?" Regina asked.

"You had magic twins together. That seems like true love territory to me," Henry teased.

"Enough! Just tell us what Zoe said!" Emma demanded to know.

"She had been using Emma's magic in my head like I'm a human telephone and that pissed me off. She wanted me to tell you that she's still kicking but stuck in a really screwy place and she really wanted to come back home now. I told her to get lost and then she got pissed at me. She retaliated in really horrible ways. I'm not really in my bedroom. She dragged me in there with her. It's really dark and cold there. Something has been chasing us. I always hear someone breathing. I can't tell if it's us or whoever is chasing us because we've been running since I got there. Mom, I'm glad you finally came to see me." Henry rambled.

"Henry, in deference to Emma, if she didn't ask… I would have never come to see you," Regina revealed.

"So you came this time…?" Henry's question trailed off.

"For Zoe," Regina answered. "The second time I came here to visit you I wanted to ask you for something but you disturbed me with your war of wall issues. I thought you didn't have the mental capability to understand my request."

"What request?" Henry asked.

"I named you Henry after my father. I suppose it is fitting that after I killed him to invoke the dark curse his namesake would try to return the favor. However you still have my family name, Mills. Since you thought it a good idea to kill me, I think it only fitting you relinquish it," she added.

"If I'm no longer Henry Mills, who will I be instead?" Henry asked.

"You can be a Swan," Emma suggested.

"That's a made up name!" Henry protested.

"You can be a Gold or you can be a Cassidy. That is your father's chosen name," Emma suggested.

"Those are made up names too! You don't want to be my Mom anymore?" Henry asked Regina.

"Killing her would have made that an inevitability, Henry. The fact that she survived your attack changes nothing," Emma spoke before Regina could reply.

She kneeled down beside the bed and smiled at the boy who guilted her into coming back to Storybrooke with him, where she found a family of sorts and the possibility of love: experiences she never had before.

"Always remember that I never stopped being your mother, even when you were a big pain in my ass! Never forget that, no matter what." Emma said with the subtext of an unspoken promise she demanded from him.

Then she smiled gently at him and spoke, "I promise I will find you both and bring you back home," she added.

"We both will," Regina added with a determined, annoyed stare at Emma.

– – –

The third floor of the building on the planet with the binary suns, was the corporate offices the defunct SyncteX Corp. In 1999, SyncteX Corp, created a data retrieval and storage system. On this floor were numerous abandoned terminals still operating long after the company went bankrupt, in 2013.

The corporation lost its market share because its customers / operators were mysteriously disappearing. When the company technicians discovered why this was occurring they disappeared too, into the data storage system, transformed into living computer script, called GHOSTS: general hardware-oriented system transfer spirits, by the SyncteX Corp IT department.

Overtime the date storage system, stored itself so many times it slipped the entire headquarters of SyncteX Corp from earth to a planet with binary suns.

GHOSTS uploaded into the system retained the emotions and memories of their corporeal counterparts until they needed new OPERATORS, like the young bipedal organism that appeared in the tunnels under SyncteX Corp.

One GHOST who owned thousands of OPERATORS on the upper floors of SyncteX Corp sensed the presence of a new potential acquisition and wanted to add it to its collection. It monitored psionic communication from the organic and unknown sources, discovering the label of the organic: Zoe.

This specific powerful GHOST submitted an .exe file with the following parameters: param in .GHOST(): acquire(ZoeOPERATOR):

This GHOST had been chasing this organic ever since one of his most loyal TomOPERATOR placed the run order to the main complier.


	7. Chapter 7: CTRL F then CRTL S

**Chapter Seven –** **CTRL F then CRTL S**

In the laboratory she shared with her missing sister Zoe, Alexia sat at her desk reviewing the survey of the on-site gamma-ray telescope reading from the day of the accident and a reading taken hours ago.

She was inspired by her Mom's mental communication from Henry's room. Emma told her that Mr. Gold was instrumental in the building up of destructive energy. She thought that something uniquely astrophysical might be a key to the specific catalyst of the accident.

Neither she nor Zoe interacted much with Mr. Gold even though he was her maternal grandfather. However, both girls she were very friendly with Belle. While both girls weren't discouraged to enjoy their relationship with their grands: Snow and Charming, their mother simply refused to acknowledge her connection to Mr. Gold. Sensitive to their mother's wishes the girls never referred to him as granddad but as his cursed name, Mr. Gold.

His wife Belle once revealed to the girls that much of Mr. Gold's magical knowledge had to do with his ability to accurately read cosmological phenomena–which was one of a reason why they studied physics, becoming scientists.

Alexis studied the two reports frustrated by her inability to pull useful data from either one when both her moms appeared in the lab. She looked up and smiled at them both. She loved these two women dearly and it pained her a bit that we're at odds with each other.

– – –

When Alexis was about to speak, Emma's cell phone rang. She checked her phone and gestured to both Alexis and Regina that she needed to answer the call as she stepped away from them.

Regina hugged and kissed her adult daughter, smiling as the affection was returned.

"How goes it?" Regina asked.

"When Mom told me that Mr. Gold had something to do with the accident, I had an inspiration. Once Zoe and I visited Belle and spoke briefly with him. He was excited that we had magic. He talked on and on about energy and the connection between manipulating it and the position of the stars when you do, actually being really creepy about it. So I wondered: what was the low level energy spectra at the time of the accident?" Alexis revealed. "Of course this idea yielded nothing we can use," she added.

Regina was about to make a suggestion when they overheard Emma speaking loud and tersely into her phone, "I have no price requirements. Just sell the damn thing! Put the money in the secondary account." Then she abruptly disconnected the call.

"So what have we got?" She asked Alexis.

"I can run the original experiment, no problems, no hiccups. It's the catalyst that I can't determine." Alexis complained.

"Good. If you had found it we'd probably have to search for you. Whatever it was, it was massive. The first four cars of that train looked like something really huge punched it off the tracks," Emma recalled. "Maybe low energy isn't what you need to look for. What else could you check for in that scope of yours?" she asked.

"I was about to suggest the same thing," Regina said.

"Is it true?" Alexis asked.

"Is what true, Sweetheart?" Regina asked.

"Is it true that Henry is with Zoe?" Alexis asked.

"His essence, yes His body is still here in this realm," Regina said.

"Him? Of all people, him! Why him and not me?" Alexis cried.

"I'm not certain Sweetheart but I suspect it has to do with the magic Emma placed as a sentinel in his head. That piece of magic acts as a two-way radio between your sister and him." Regina guessed.

"We're you able to talk to her?"

"Not directly, no," Regina said. "I did sense her presence in the background of his consciousness," she added.

"I miss her!" Alexis lamented.

Regina hugged her tight and replied, "I do too."

She looked over at Emma who was quietly contemplating the floor of the lab, deep in thought. She added, "We both miss her."

"Background! Wait a minute! Instead of the background… radiation levels I need to examine… the gamma ray bursts! A stronger energy yield! I'm on it. Thanks Moms!" Alexis said, excitedly as another amazing piece of insight filled her fertile mind. She jumped up from her task chair to order a new survey through the gamma-ray scope.

When she left the lab, Regina observed Emma for quite a while before she asked, "Anything on your mind?"

"Why tell you when you can probably read my thoughts," Emma replied.

"If you want to wallow in self pity, do so AFTER we find and rescue my daughter!" Regina spat back.

"I knew Bitchy you was lurking under the surface," Emma replied with a smirk.

Regina rolled her eyes in frustration as she replied, "I can't read your mind because you have placed a barrier spell around your head, I can't penetrate."

"I wasn't certain if I was successful." Emma said quite pleased. "What I was thinking was… when Number Two gets everything we need to duplicate what happened, we have three problems to solve," she added.

"How to prevent another explosion and open the rift to the correct realm," Regina deduced.

"And how to stabilize the rift after we open it so it doesn't collapse," Emma finished her deductions. "I think we need two anchor points. One here and one there to create a bridge for her to cross back," she considered.

"So speaking with Blue was helpful. And you've been working hard on perfecting your magic," Regina observed with pride.

"I suspected you asked her to call me but I don't mind the manipulation. She was helpful." Emma said. "I am fully committed to rescuing Zoe. The hows and whys occupy all my thoughts," she added.

"That's why you ran away?" Regina asked.

"I think you should be the anchor here. When the rift is reopened I'll cross over and be the anchor on that side. Between us we can create a bridge." Emma suggested, changing the subject.

"No."

"What do you mean no?" Emma asked.

"What is to prevent you being stuck on the other side when the rift collapses?" Regina asked.

"I have to make sure Henry gets out as well," Emma replied.

"Once Zoe is free, he will be too because she pulled his essence over there not his physical body. Where she goes, he goes. You would still be stuck on the other side," Regina deduced.

"You and Blue can pull me out. Call her. Ask her to come." Emma suggested.

"But the bridge will be between you and I. Even with Blue here, if your end of the bridge is cut off, you'll be trapped over there. No. We'll both have to cross," Regina decided.

"Don't be ridiculous. I move really fast, especially when I flame on. I can outrun anything," Emma bragged.

"That's a risk I'm not willing to take," Regina said dismissing the idea.

"It's not your risk!" Emma exclaimed.

"Alexis and Zoe are no longer children but they would be devastated if anything happened to you. They already lost their father," Regina said.

"I won't fail. But you think I will because you always thought my best wasn't quite good enough," Emma accused. "I'm not that same screw up who came to your make believe bullshit town with a run away boy! I can make good decisions and act on them," she added.

"Like Singapore? Like after many years of sobriety, drinking again?" Regina accused.

"If I'm such a screw up in your eyes, what the hell do you need me for on this mission?" Emma replied, annoyed her recent indiscretions were being thrown in her face.

"Your magic is much improved. But you still make promises you and I both know you won't keep. Now my plan will work, getting everyone home safely. Alexis will redo the experiment with Gold's catalyst, opening a rift. You and I will create a bubble to contain the energy, preventing another explosion. You and I will then cross over. Stabilize the rift opening, find Zoe, and bring her back, through said stable opening, then close it. Any questions?" Regina laid out her plan.

"Fine, we'll do this your way," Emma conceded. For now, she thought.

– – –

The sounds stopped.

Zoe looked at the map on the wall. It was unintelligible but she realized they were on the tenth level of a building. This floor was a long corridor with many doors. She opened one door and discovered it was an empty laboratory–biological one with all the microscopes, centrifuges and such.

She examined some on the equipment, forgotten on the lab bench. Much of the equipment was antiquated by her standards.

"Why did you bring me here?" Henry asked as he entered the lab behind her, gently closing the door behind them.

"If you just did what I asked of you, I wouldn't have brought you here," she replied.

Henry pouted at her then looked around. He jumped when he heard something was in the cabinet drawers under the lab bench. Zoe slowly opened the doors of the cabinet yo reveal… one of her dopplegangers, a really tall, skinny one, folding into the makeshift hiding place.

"How did you get so far ahead of us?" Zoe asked her double.

"All I did was run until I got tired," It answered.

"You're as weird as Emma! With all these multiple yous!" Henry accused.

"Stow it Evil Prince!" Zoe ordered.

"Don't call me that!" Henry demanded. "My name is Henry!" he added.

"Ungrateful children who try to kill their parents are evil in my book. You seem so in love with thinking yourself a Prince so the name sticks or I'll continue to call you Nimrod, which works for me too!" Zoe replied childishly.

Henry folded his arms across his chest in defiance.

"I'll need you to distract it when it comes so we can get away," Zoe ordered herself. Her double sighed as it unfolded itself, climbing out of its hiding space.

"What's chasing after us? Why is it chasing after us? What did you do to make it chase after us? What happens if it chases us?" He asked.

"We're you really this inquisitive when you were a kid?" Zoe asked.

"I don't like not knowing," he said with indignation.

"I have no idea what the heck is going on." She replied. "But I know we don't want it to catch us," she added.

"It can't do anything to me because I'm not really here," Henry replied haughtily.

Zoe slapped him hard on his shoulder and he felt it as he shouted, "Ouch!"

"You may not be physically here but you can get hurt here," she observed. "Before you ask, I figured that out when I was able to grab your hand. The Moms finally know we're here. We just need to avoid what's chasing us," Zoe added as he held up her hand to stop any further questions.

"I don't want to be here," he complained.

"You don't want to be anywhere," Zoe observed.

"True." Henry smiled.

She looked at him and saw the resemblance of their Mom, in his eyes and the way he smiled. She realized he was once a cute kid and just how easily he was able to trick both Moms into trusting him.

He looked up at the tall woman and asked, "Are you really my sister?"

"Yes, I'm part of a set and no your cute doesn't work on me, Henry." Zoe said. "I pulled you here out of frustration. You could have just helped me but you refused. Flat out refused out of selfishness. You're not happy so no one else should be happy? Unacceptable. After every shitty thing you've done, you don't get choices as far as I'm concerned," she added.

"Well, I learned from the best," Henry retorted with a smug grin.

"If that's a dig at Mommy… then you can go fend for yourself!" Zoe threatened. "She may have hurt others but she never did that shit to you! Never!"

"She tried to make me think I was crazy!" he complained.

"Considering where you ended up…" She shot back.

Before Henry could respond, the scraping noise started again and was coming closer to them.

"I should let it catch you!" He threatened.

"If you do, you'll be trapped here too," she promised. "If it kills me, you be here alone. Only I can touch and talk to you because it's my spell that brought you here," she revealed with a smirk.

"You are exactly like her too!" He accused.

"That's a compliment," she replied with a fond smile. "Argue or run. I vote we run," she added.

Zoe nodded once to her double who nodded back, then snuck out of the lab, sacrificing herself for her original and the annoying man child accompanying her.

– – –

When Blue finally arrived at the private lab in Princeton, New Jersey, she was accompanied by one of the Security fairies, a large woman with a mischievous smirk named Pell.

Blue and Pell were escorted to the lab where Alexis was preparing the twenty-third attempt of the experiment she and Zoe were working.

Alexia looked up and greeted Blue with a smile.

"Where are your mothers, Alexis? I finally figured out the series of spells Rumplestilskin was playing with," Blue exclaimed excitedly.

"They are inside the gallery above the accelerator. Mom got hungry, conjured up a gross hotdog with fries piled up on it which inspired an idea to elongate the barrier rather than extend it over the entire complex. She talked Mommy into the extending the protective barrier the entire 3.2 kilometers of the linear accelerator then have the rift open at he mid point," Alexis said. "Personally I think she wanted to be two miles away from Mommy while they built the protective sheath barrier," she pointed out in a hushed breath.

"The history between your mothers is complicated. I apologize for anything I've done to add to the distance between them," Blue said.

"Please! This is the norm in the Swan-Mills household," Alexis complained. "Don't tell them I called them that! They tend to freak out over the dumbest things and they need to focus on getting Zoe back home," she whispered.

Blue nodded in agreement.

"I'll be able to see the gallery on the surveillance monitor. I've calculated a three-seconds delay from when the image is recorded in the gallery to when it reaches the monitors up here. I have three-seconds exactly to begin the experiment after you use those time spells. Signal me with a hand wave that the barrier and time spells are being used and I'll flip the proverbial switch," Alexis said.

Alexis looked a long time at the accelerator when it dawned on her, "Channeling the excess energy along the gallery into the rift from both sides…Mom is a freaking genius!"

"She would dispute that to her dying breath," Blue replied.

"True, very true," Alexis laughed.

– – –

Emma stood at one end of the gallery while Regina stood exactly 3.2 kilometers away, beside Blue who was invoking arcane time spells. Together they created a protective sheath barrier that isolated the three women from the entire research facility.

When Blue waved up at the camera, the gallery started to heat up and glow a warm yellow hue. That hue grew brighter and brighter until it burst and a diamond shaped rift formed at the mid point of the gallery.

As the surge of concentrated neon yellow energy built up, it bounced along the walls of the barrier, flowing like water into the rift. Emma closed her eyes thinking of the magic she placed in Henry's head, it lit up like a beacon at an indeterminate point inside that opening.

She yelled out as she jogged toward the opening, "We've located them!"

Blue helped to stabilize the opening, warning the two mothers when they reached the mid-point of the gallery, "I can't keep it open for too long by myself. I can give you only a limited amount of time."

"This is why I suggested you stay here to anchor this side," Emma argued feeling vindicated.

"I said no," Regina replied dismissively.

"Anchoring?" Blue asked.

"She wanted to build a bridge with her over there," Regina pointed into the ominous looking rift. She added, "And me on this side."

"That's actually a great idea!" Blue exclaimed. "Instead of focusing all our efforts on the opening, which would take all my efforts, we could extend it effortlessly over a bridge!" She explained.

Emma just crossed her arms across her chest smugly.

"If something goes wrong she could be stuck in there, we go in together. Blue, you and Alexis will stabilize this bridge on this side while Emma and I stabilize on that side," Regina posed as an alternative.

"If we going to do this…" Emma said before she darted through rift followed by an annoyed Regina.

– – –

They walked across a dimension corridor with walls that depicted the distorted images of the thoughts of anyone who travelled along it. When Emma saw past images of her emotional pain as both a child and an adult, she changed into flame form and sped through the corridor toward the opening at the other end.

Regina only saw the images of her past thoughts and experiences, many thoughts of pain, loneliness and anger from the Enchanted Forest still haunted her but none of those memories were as traumatic as the day Henry attempted to kill her.

She was tempted to turn around, going back the way she came when an image of a distraught Alexis in her childhood bedroom played across a corridor wall.

Regina pushed forward when she saw Emma disappear in a blue streak past her, realizing she must have been traumatized by her own past demons.

– – –

When Regina crossed the threshold into the other dimension she found herself in dark tunnels with caves extending off of them. She turned to look down the corridor she travelled observing a lattice of light extending towards them. She found Emma in flame form extending a lattice of light to meet the one traveling towards them. She assisted her. When the lattices met, they melded together and throbbed into one solids trellis.

A bridge of light strong enough to hold their weight, when Regina tested it. Once the bridge was formed, Regina aimed a bolt of energy at the opening to anchor it to the light lattice, stabilizing it.

Emma remained in flame form as she explored the tunnels with Regina following closely behind her. Every so often she would check the magic connection from Henry's head which was faint but still present, allowing it to direct her towards Zoe.

They heard a loud scream, then the horrifying sound of flesh tearing then more screaming. Emma raced towards the screams, followed by a frantic Regina.

When they reach the cave where the screaming died down they found a large pile of dead Zoe's–thirty in all, Emma counted. The bodies were piled in a heap like trash.

Regina cried out in pain, while Emma turned her flame self off to examine the multiples of her eldest daughter. One of the dead duplicates popped out of existence when she touched it. Emma breathed a sigh of relief when she spoke her observations, "These are duplicates of Zoe."

Emma played around a lot with making multiples of herself first to get Henry to be more afraid of her as his sole parent to instill a sense of respect for the power of authority over him. She realized it was probably a lost cause given how spoiled the boy was but she was going to give it the old girl scout try, even though she never stuck around anywhere long enough to become a scout.

When Emma made multiples of herself, practicing various aspects of her magic, once her duplicates were destroyed, for whatever reason, they popped away like soap bubbles. The popping sound was a bit disturbing to hear but she soon realized there was something whimsical about duplicating oneself anyway, so the bubble sounds kind of went with the situation.

– – –

"They shouldn't be corporeal nor in this state once they loss their connection with the original. These dups shouldn't be here. Something ominous is making us see their remains like this," Emma added.

"Why did she make so many multiples of herself?" Regina asked.

"We need to find a duplicate still in connection with her to find out," Emma suggested as she shot a blue flame towards the pile of Zoe's dissipating them into nothingness with a succession of loud popping sounds.

– – –

They didn't find any more of Zoe's multiples in the caves but they did find the metal staircase ascending upwards into seemingly, infinity. So they climbed and climbed.

Emma wanted to race up the stairs but she held back her speed not wanting to leave Regina behind to fend for herself. She looked back and saw the toil the climbing was taking on Regina, whose breath was a bit labored.

"I could have found her by now if you didn't insist on coming with me," Emma complained about Regina slowing her down. "You are kind of getting up there in age. You should really be taking it easy. You know the rocking chair, afternoon bingo with tea, sort of easy," she taunted.

"Why couldn't we just materialize where you sense Zoe?" Regina protested, as she ignored the dig.

"I've tried but my magic is kinda wonky here. I can sense her but I can't seem to let her know we're here, it's a one way connection. When I try to appear where I sense her, I can feel myself beginning to separate into multiples," Emma revealed.

"What does that feel like?" Regina asked.

"Like your whole body has fallen asleep. It heats up really fast all tingly as you try to wake it up," Emma replied.

"Oh that's what that was? I thought I was going through the change of life," Regina quipped.

"At your age, that's a miracle," Emma quipped.

"I'm not the one with a penchant for the elderly, Dear. While I had a few decades on you, my dear useless half brother was two hundred years plus old when he sired your son," Regina said with an insincere smirk.

"Touché," Emma replied as she noticed them well before she saw them.

The moving shadow figures that seemed to surround her and Regina, coming from both the stairs below them and from the ones above them. She glanced back at Regina who sensed the danger as well, with a knowing stare.

Emma metamorphosed into pure blue flame while fire balls formed in the palms of Regina's hands. Within moments, they were in the fight of their lives at the center of an inferno as inky black figures advanced upon them, avoiding the fire balls.

"They aren't flammable," Regina exclaimed as she attempted a blast of ice instead.

Some other shadows were stopped, trapped in ice but the others allowed the ice to flow through themselves as they continued to attack the two magic making women.

Three almost had Emma pinned down when she spun rapidly, so fast, she created a mini tornado, pulling apart the shadows surrounding her. Torn apart by the vortex of Emma's spinning, they splintered into thin strains of black, text-like strings.

At the end of her spin, she reversed her twirl, sending the bits of thick black string in all directions away from both her and Regina.

Another shadow figure wrapped a tendril of night around the left wrist of Regina prevent her from throwing another spell with it. Emma ran into the dark entity that had a hold on Regina consuming it in blue flame.

Distracted with freeing Regina, another shadow form stabbed at Emma with a pointy dark limb, as sharp as a diamond knife. Emma hissed in pain as a jagged cut appeared, running along the length of her right arm.

Regina blasted the thing instinctively with a bright blast of light, dissipating all the shadows attacking them. She rushed to Emma's side but her efforts were roughly rebuffed.

"What the hell were those things?" Emma asked.

"Whatever they were, while fire and ice are useless, light is an effective weapon," Regina observed.

Emma stood with a grunt and started climbing the stairs again as she replied, "Zoe can't stay here any longer."

– – –

Zoe and the essence of Henry reached the thirteenth floor of the building by crawling through climate control ducts they gained access to on the eleventh floor. The entire thirteenth floor was the baroque interior of an old church.

Its floor was alternating checkered pattern of black and white tiles, which reminded Henry of a chess board. He had an ominous feeling about both the number of the floor and how much like a game the whole scary affair felt.

He secretly missed his small room in the mental institute. At least there were no surprises there, he conceded to himself.

All the wooden pews were rotting away and knocked over. There were hymnal books all over the floor, covered with dust. The smell was dank and musty. The ceiling over head was a dome on which was the rendering of a constellations of stars neither Zoe nor Henry recognized.

 _No one had entered this floor in a very long time._ Zoe felt in her entire body.

She didn't know if her Moms had arrived yet and that puzzled her. One of the reasons she brought Henry here besides the annoyance / revenge factors was that he possessed the residual energy signal of Emma's magic in his corporal self. Zoe thought she would be able to talks with the Moms through his essence as she could speak through him physically but that did not materialized the way she had envisioned.

 _Magic works really strange here,_ she conceded.

– – –

A single shadow figure hung itself along the corners where no light existed as it watched the woman and the spirit boy with rapt interest:

"ZoeOPERATOR has a GHOST? The encoding of that GHOST… is blank!" The shadow figure assessed as it scanned the essence of Henry.

"How does the ZoeOPERATOR serve it? How does a nullGHOST retain ownership over ZoeOPERATOR? Is nullGHOST a deception?" The shadow wondered aloud as it stepped out of the shadows.

Zoe jumped as this tall dark figure approached both Henry and her from the shadows, separating itself as it bled into view. She backed away from it, while Henry, curious Henry asked, "What are you?"

"My designation is alphGHOST," It replied as it approached Zoe and Henry's essence..

"Why are you chasing us, alphGHOST?" Henry asked as he figured out to whom he was speaking.

"Does nullGHOST retain ownership over ZoeOPERATOR?" alphGHOST inquired.

Henry replied in disgust, "She forced me here!"

"OPERATORs are acquired. I will acquire ZoeOPERATOR," alphGHOST replied.

"No one acquires me buddy!" Zoe exclaimed with the promise of harmful threats.

"As alphGHOST I own thousands of OPERATORs," alphGHOST replied as a thick band of black extended from him to wrap around Zoe's throat.

"Sucks for you!" Henry taunted. "alphGHOST can you send me back to where I belong?" Henry asked sweetly.

"OPERATORs serve nullGHOST. GHOSTs do not serve GHOSTs," alphGHOST refused.

"But I haven't acquired any OPERATORs," Henry whined.

"Unaligned nullGHOSTs are purged from HEAVEN," alphGHOST revealed.

What happens to purged GHOSTs? Henry asked nervous about the answer.

"The living OPERATORs maintain TRUE executable programs in HEAVEN. Purged nullGHOSTs are FALSE executable programs. FALSE executable programs undergo complete file deletion," alphGHOST revealed.

"What does that mean Zoe?" Henry asked frantically.

"If they delete you… your essence… you die back home," Zoe struggled to answer as alphGHOST pulled her towards it by her neck. Once she was close enough, alphGHOST banded the side of her neck with its sigil of ownership: an alpha symbol in the center of a triangle.

As Zoe screamed in pain, Henry ran away to hide.

– – –

Grimacing and cursing profusely, Emma held her damaged right arm close against her body with her left hand as she sat down on the titled floor.

"We won't prevail if we stay at odds with each other. I am not your enemy Emma!" Regina exclaimed.

"You shouldn't be here. You are slowing me down! I now have to worry about you as well as Zoe," Emma complained.

Emma began bleeding from the cut on her arm. Regina moved to heal her. "I can take care of myself," Emma spat out as she slapped Regina's hands away. She slowly healed herself.

"I don't know what Law of Emma I have broken to receive your ire this time," Regina said with frustration.

Ready to fight with Regina, Emma turned on her but was stopped in her combative approach when she noticed the hurt in her soulful eyes. "You didn't have to come get me in Singapore," she said after she decided perhaps fighting Regina wouldn't net the objectives she wanted. She decided on the fly, that perhaps being brutally honest would.

"I needed you!" Regina exclaimed.

"It was a minor relapse. I would have gotten a handle on it," Emma offered dismissively.

"That wasn't a minor relapse and Zoe didn't have time for you to get a handle on yourself!" Regina accused. "You were devastated and I… I missed you," she added softly.

"No, you don't get to do that! You don't get to do that to me!" Emma protested as she transformed into her blue flamed self.

"Do what?"

"You know what, never mind. Let's just finish this and get Zoe home," Emma said.

"Say what you wanted to say!" Regina demanded.

"You had no right to care for me… to kiss me!" Emma whispered.

"You kissed me back!" Regina exclaimed. "Repeatedly!" she added.

"I've wanted to kiss you for the past seventy years, since I stepped into that rat infested mausoleum my folks thought was a fabulous castle in the Enchanted Forest!" Emma revealed.

"I told you not to go!" Regina reminded her.

"I know… I know," Emma whispered with regret.

"You can't blame me for your mistakes, Emma," Regina replied.

"I finally realize the truth," Emma spoke aloud after a long intense staring match and she changed back into her normal human female form.

"What truth?" Regina asked.

"When I decided to visit the Enchanted Forest, before Henry's despicable act, as far as I was concerned, I needed to make it up to you for all the times I picked them over you. I stayed in your old rooms in the castle missing you, deciding once I was back in Storybrooke I was dedicated to you and only you, screw everyone else. As far as you were concerned, we were over, done. Henry's actions was the nail in the coffin for us. I wasted my time lamenting the lost of you, like it was yesterday when you were already gone... long before the twins were born. Probably before you even met Jax," Emma deduced.

"I'm not going to feel sorry for finally finding happiness and being happy. I won't allow you to do that to me!" Regina shot back.

"I'm not asking you to deny any of that. Jax was your happy ending. I get that. He became your true love. Don't deny it. I saw your heart when you came to the memorial for the folks. Its lightened up. That's one of the reasons why I didn't want you coming here with me. You don't have any of that dark desperation to survive at all costs, anymore." Emma revealed.

"What are you asking of me?" Regina asked.

"I'm really sorry your happy ending had an unexpected expiration date but I'm not something held on reserved for you to pick up off an old forgotten shelf and dust off," Emma replied.

"When did I ever treat you that way?" Regina accused with indignation.

"Regina… I need you to go your way and for me… to go mine. Once we get Zoe home there isn't any need for us to interact with one another anymore. There is no need to include me in family dinners or family holidays with the kids. I will decline every invite. That is your time with them. I can interact with the twins on my time. I'm not doing this to spite you. I'm not doing this to punish you or to be ungrateful for you caring for me. This is me chasing after my happy ending… finally," Emma revealed.

"You've… renewed relations… with Ms. Obi?" Regina asked, uncomfortable with the answer.

"My happy ending isn't someone loving me, validating me. It's me validating myself. I wasted my whole freaking life wanting… needing other people to show me, my worth. To show me. I am not the garbage my folks tossed away for a rainy day, only for each and every person I've ever loved to chuck my ass right back in the trash bin, every single time," Emma laughed.

Regina frowned at her not seeing the humor in any of this.

"I'm always the last one chosen but the first one volunteered," Emma exclaimed. "I'm done with that childish desire to fit in, to belong. Regardless of what you and everyone else believes, I'm no longer a screw up," Emma added.

"I don't believe that about you, Emma" Regina said softly.

"It doesn't matter anymore whether you do or don't. Me, being all right… with me… that's all I need. That's my happy ending," Emma declared.

Regina closed her eyes briefly, then stared directly at Emma as she continued:

"After I left the loft, I needed to get as far away from you as possible because your presence has a tendency to make me admittedly stupid. I think stupid thoughts around you. I act even stupider. So I sat on the surface of the Moon practicing invoking mental barriers to keep my thoughts, you know, private. I sat there and watched the Sun's light kiss one half of the Earth. At that moment it all crystallized for me. I realized all I've ever really wanted was the tranquility that exists in the light of the unselfish Sun. Just sat there watching one side of the Earth dim and the other side get its chance in the light. That kind of generous tranquility that shares itself with everything. I aim to get a small piece of that for myself!" Emma spoke with determination. "Now lets find our Zoe because something just hurt my eldest baby girl and that's really pissed me… the fuck off!" She added as she turned into blue flame again.

– – –

Emma, in blue flame, carried Regina up the final levels of the staircase, through a vortex of her rapidly spinning upwards, to enter the first level shopping mall but Zoe wasn't there. When they searched the deserted, weird shopping mall for clues, Regina found an empty elevator shaft when she forced its first level doors open.

Emma carried Regina as she ascended the elevator shaft using the scaffolds and catwalks to find the elevator car, stuck between the tenth and eleventh floors, with its metal floor ripped to shreds.

 _Something was forcing its way inside it_ , Regina thought in horror.

Emma helped Regina as they climbed up out of the elevator shaft onto the eleventh floor. They searched the area for any clues of Zoe's whereabouts when Emma abruptly stopped moving. Her blue flame head jerked up sensing something on the floors above them.

"She's close! Let me go get her and bring her back here to you," Emma requested as a courtesy, because whether Regina agreed or not she was taking off to rescue her daughter.

After a moment of hesitation, Regina nodded yes and Emma took off in a blurry streak of neon blue.

– – –

On the thirteenth floor, Emma entered the main area of the church-like interior and witnessed her daughter Zoe floating in the air, over the dilapidated altar while being enveloped in thick black strips, emanating from the inky limbs of a tall shadow figure below her.

Glowing ultra white with anger, Emma slammed fist first into the shadow, disabling its hold on Zoe, who dropped to the floor in a heap.

Emma turned into blue flame again, grabbed Zoe from the floor and darted off with her unconscious daughter in her arms. Chased by the shadow figure who had recovered from the blast of energy and white light, it sped after her along the dim areas of the ceiling and walls, as Emma dodged and ducked from its attacking thick black tentacles.

– – –

With Zoe nestled in her arms, Emma ran along the ceiling, then the wall then the floor of the eleventh level seeing a shocked Regina waiting up ahead. Emma yelled running directly towards her, "Grab on to me as tight as you can! Use with both hands! We're going need a fast exit back down to those tunnels!"

Regina felt the impact of Emma and got a tight grip on her blue frame as Emma didn't stop a step in her stride picking up speed with both Regina and Zoe in her care. "This might sting a little," was all Emma said right before she burst through the far wall on the eleventh floor.

She, Regina and Zoe tumbled in the air then plummeted down fast towards the yellow plasma ocean surrounding the island upon which the tall building was housed. Regina reoriented herself and sent a blast of magic down with the intention to form a slide for all of them to use to break their fall.

However, her magic created a hole in the bedrock at the base of the island instead, into which she and Zoe fell through.

Emma landed in the yellow plasma sea.

Emma swam towards the island her skin painfully burning and itching. She crawled onto the bedrock as she turned from blue to her human self. Her exposed skin, all blistered and bruised red. She groaned as she tried to heal herself but her reserves were tapped. She didn't have enough energy to completely heal herself and be in fighting form to protect her family, so she painfully changed into her ultra white flame form and dived into the hole Regina created.

– – –

Dazed, Regina found she and Zoe landed awkwardly in the tunnels, not too far from where the lattice bridge and the portal was still open. She crawled over to Zoe who was slowly regaining her consciousness. She noticed the mark branded into her neck and attempted to erase it with magic but it kept reappearing.

"Mommy?" Zoe cried when she opened her eyes seeing Regina looking down at her.

"I'm here baby! I'm here," Regina said as she hugged her girl tight, gently brushing errant blonde hairs out of her face.

"Where's Mom? Did she come with you?" Zoe asked as she tried to stand, needing her mother's help to do so.

"You think I could have stopped her?" Regina retorted.

They chuckled at the obvious answer when Emma, in her ultra white glory landed close by. She grabbed a hold of Zoe hugging her tightly, whispering for her ears only, "Don't you ever do this again! I have three new grey hairs over this little adventure." She kissed Zoe devotedly upon her head.

Zoe joked, "There isn't a grey hair on your head, Mom."

"I love you Number One. I promised your sister to get you home so off you go," Emma said as she rushed both women towards the still open rift, with a gently blast of wind.

"Zoe the lattice will hold your weight. Go on. We'll follow," Regina ordered. Zoe was hesitant to leave her parents.

"What about Henry? I brought his stinky self here with me," Zoe revealed.

"Only his essence baby. Once you return, he will as well," Regina replied.

"Go on honey. We'll be right behind you. I want to make sure this portal closes so nothing follows us back home," Emma said.

Zoe entered the rift disappearing as she walked along the energy lattice towards... Home.

"You're next," Emma ordered between coughs.

Regina looked suspiciously at her as asked, "Since Alexis and Blue can collapse the portal back home, you going last means… When you said you are going your own way... you're not coming with us are you?"

"You found me out. Can't keep much from you?" Emma laughed between coughs.

"I can read your mind… again," Regina revealed, startled by the renewed ability.

"Damn. I couldn't maintain those spells and keep this awesome shadow ass kicking form at the same time," Emma complained as the coughing increased in frequency.

"What's happened? What's wrong?" Regina demanded to know as she tried to assess the damage to Emma and heal it. She was shocked that Emma's body was shutting down so quickly. When she healed one organ, another began to fail.

Emma dropped to her knees: a thick yellow liquid, spilled out of her mouth. She coughed out a mist of neon yellow spray.

"I don't think you're supposed to swim in that ocean outside," Emma replied then she collapsed on the ground, her body fluctuating between being human and not quite human.

"No! No! Don't you dare do this to me! Don't you dare! Emma I'll never forgive you! Come on we have to go back home," Regina demanded as she dropped down to her knees beside her.

"Go before… Go and be with our girls," Emma ordered.

"How am I supposed to tell them about this? You never keep your promises!" Regina accused. "Damn you! You said you weren't trying to punish me!" She cried profusely.

"The moment I left that loft, I knew... I wasn't coming back." Emma revealed.

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again and said, "Don't worry Regina…on the Moon, I finally realize what I was born for... what my purpose it: I am the savior. I am the key. I open the way to escape. Let me do this one thing I can do… really well. My gift to you: Go home Regina, escape is that way," Emma smiled as she looked at the open rift.

Her bright eyes stared at it until they stopped seeing anything at all.

Before Regina could respond, a black tendril wrapped around her neck pulling her away from Emma's dead body. As she struggled against the thing around her neck, she sent a blinding blast of energy, collapsing the rift on her side.

"ZoeOPERATOR... purged," the shadow holding her stated.

It, alphGHOST, turned Regina around to face it, demanding, "unknownOPERATOR, state designation."

Regina struggled in silence against her pain and emotions spilling all over the tunnel.

Having lost Zoe OPERATOR, alphGHOST branded this unknownOPERATOR with its sigil in her neck. Over her screams of burning pain, alphGHOST spoke, "I have acquired unknownOPERATOR."

When the unknownOPERATOR aka Regina collapsed from the pain and shock, alphGHOST dragged her by her lower limbs, out of the tunnels.

– – –

Hiding behind a low wall, Henry held the scream the fought it's way out behind his fists stuffed in his mouth, when he witnessed Emma die and his Mom branded and dragged off like Zoe was.

He cried, lamenting over his anger of being adopted and his curiosity, finding his birth mom, both things starting all this mess.

His sight blurry with tears, he slowly approached her body. Even in death it pulsed between Emma's former human self and a darker variety–until Emma's body settled on being completely black: black skin, black hair and black unseeing eyes.

He hesitantly touched her arm, expecting not to be able to since Zoe was the only one who could touch him here. He jumped when the nearest of his fingers sparked a torrent of static electricity along Emma's entire body, which provoked her to abruptly sit upright and turn her head slowly to face him, as she scanned her surrounding environment.

She saw him not as the essence of Henry but as a strange piece of code in a world of codes. She spoke, "I am… designation EmmaGHOST. You HenryGHOST have no code. You are nullGHOST. You will be purged."

"Emma, they got Mom," Henry cried, as she abandoned looking at him to scanned the encoded information about the tunnels.

She looked back at him for a moment processing his statement. When Mom equaled Regina in her mental computations, she spoke again, "Who has… MomOPERATOR?"

"The scary shadow people here… who look just like you," Henry revealed.


	8. Chapter 8: Henry 20

**Chapter Eight –** **Henry 2.0**

In the tunnels Henry followed closely behind Emma or EmmaGHOST as she referred to herself. She was walking in a clumsy, jerky manner getting used to her alien form. When her movements were smoother, she began testing her mobility as various speeds as she got used to the changes of her body and how she interacted with this alien environment.

"Emma, please we have to save Mom!" Henry pleaded.

"You attempted to delete MomOPERATOR," Emma recalled in terms of her new perspective. She tested the limits of her ability to elongate her arms to form the same ribbon like tentacles she witnessed other beings like her used to subdue the others.

"I know… I know… I wish I had never done that," Henry lamented.

"Wish," Emma reviewed her memories of this word. "A wish is not executable," she concluded dismissively after her internal review.

"Please Emma! Can't you be less mechanical and more Emma?" Henry asked. "Insult me! Slap me upside my head for being stupid again! Anything!" He pleaded.

Emma ignored the distraught nullGHOST, when an internal mandate to join the others emerged within herself. She sensed a deep need, a dormant desire to fulfill the programming screaming in her consciousness: Acquire OPERATORs.

"I'd even take multiple yous at this point," Henry whispered dejectedly as he jogged to keep up with her.

Emma stopped walking, ignoring the acquire directive in her head and turned to face HenryGHOST. She regarded him. She had the sense to comfort him but didn't quite recall what comforting entailed. Some other recent memories bubbled up to the surface of her consciousness.

"ZoeOPERATOR is gone, why are you still here HenryGHOST?" Emma observed with a head tilt of curiosity.

"That thing that took Mom, told me I had no code. It said they were going to delete me! I ran away from Zoe and it. I found some terminals and I sort of uploaded myself into the system here to stop them deleting me," Henry revealed.

"When ZoeOPERATOR escapes, you escape. HenryGHOST is now trapped," Emma observed.

"I was pissed off at her," Henry admitted. "She had me wearing adult diapers!" He complained.

"Why does HenryGHOST want to save MomOPERATOR? MomOPERATOR requested summary return of primary designation," Emma remembered out loud.

"What? You mean when she wanted to take the name Mills back? After comparing notes with Zoe about Mom, I remembered how Mom could stop you in your tracks with her many difficult lessons. Mom didn't want my name back she was showing me how to get rid of someone… without killing them. It was not less painful, believe me," Henry revealed. "Emma! We have to save her!" He insisted.

"HenryGHOST without its OPERATOR is FALSE. FALSE equals deletion. If an OPERATOR goes long without serving its GHOST, it is purged," Emma recited from a new code added to herself the moment she transformed.

"The GHOSTs enslaved the OPERATORs in this world," Henry shared conspiratorially.

"HenryGHOST did more than upload self. HenryGHOST learned about this world. Supply the newly acquired data of this world to EmmaGHOST," Emma requested.

Henry smiled when he recognized the real Emma inside this foreign mechanic version.

– – –

Henry lectured about all he learned as he led Emma to the third floor of the building:

"We're on a planet with binary suns called HEAVEN, not like the place after death but an acronym that spells out Harmonious Electronic Automated Visualized Established Network. The harmony here is based on slavery. There is nothing harmonious about that. Slavery is wrong," he told her.

"Slavery has many forms: the slave of another or the slave of a thought," Emma observed.

"A thought? Like an obsession?" Henry asked.

"Correct," Emma replied as she walked off again

Henry thought about that then continued jogging to catch up to her, "The planet is surrounded by an ocean of plasma with is very toxic."

"EmmaGHOST is aware of its toxicity," Emma said as she abruptly stopped walking. Henry didn't realize she would stop moving, so he moved through her, an unsettling effect to say the least considering who was the proverbial GHOST and who wasn't.

– – –

As they were climbing the metal stairs leading out of the tunnels, Henry relayed with excitement, "We're going to the third floor of this building, which has 108 floors! I know, 108 floors? Messed with my head too! This entire building used to be only thirteen floors tall. Well, really twelve floors, because the thirteenth floor was the HVAC system for the entire building. This building was the corporate offices of some old company named SyncteX Corp. The SyncteX Corporation created and sold a data retrieval and storage system. On the third floor are a lot of abandoned terminals still working. That's where I uploaded myself." He revealed.

Emma listened to everything he said with great interest.

"The GHOSTs maintain operations mostly on the upper floors of the building, floors 50 to 108 exclusively. The OPERATORS are living beings from all over the place not just from back home. Those binary suns are so bright they attract people to this place like a trap then they become slaves to the GHOSTs. The population of OPERATORs has been decreasing over time and they don't understand why that's happening," Henry said.

Emma calculated it would take long time to locate the MomOPERATOR on all those floors.

"From the stuff I could uncover, GHOSTs are made when people die… or sort of die. The lower numbers of OPERATORs are because they eventually became GHOSTs. But here's the weird thing, the number of GHOSTs haven't risen above 100. The ghosting thing is weird too because it didn't start on this planet. It started back home where we're from! Some customers of SyncteX Corporation were mysteriously disappearing when they used the GHOST(which stands for General Hardware-Oriented System Transfer) data storage program. I think someone made that program more powerful than it was created. It stored the missing customers as code. They were the first GHOSTs." Henry said. "I think the GHOST that took Mom was one of those first ones," He suspected.

"Who augmented the GHOST program?" Emma asked.

"That I couldn't find out," Henry replied.

They continued their journey exiting the metal staircase, walking through the shopping mall towards the elevator.

"This conveyance is not operational," Emma stated from memory.

"They fixed it," Henry replied as he pushed the call button. The elevator car arrived on the first floor and they entered it. Henry was about to push the third button when Emma stopped him, "On what floor is MomOPERATOR located?"

"I think she's on the 108th floor because that's where alphGHOST stays," Henry suspected.

"We go to the 108th floor," Emma decided.

Henry realized with a deep exhale that this was a seat of the pants sort of mission not an overly planned out one like he'd would have liked.

He was upset about what happened to Emma, he was worried about his Mom too but deep down… he was excited that for one time in his life he was part of something that might actually turn out right. Not because it made him fell good about himself. Mom didn't belong here. Mom was no one's slave. And maybe, just maybe Mom could help Emma too.

– – –

Regina woke up, crying.

Everything she had worked so hard for either crumbled in her hands or was yanked far out of her reach. Each time she tried to force events to her advantage it seemed as though the whole universe resisted her efforts.

 _That's why I clung so desperately to Jax. He made me feel safe. He was easy to love, effortlessly I didn't have to work hard with him_ , she lamented. _Being in his life was a vacation from my own,_ she cried silently.

 _Now he's gone_ , she thought as she blinked tears.

Through her tears she saw she was in a windowless room, without furniture, without any indication of an exit, nothing but ceiling, floor and walls: all alone.

Regina realized with an exhaled breath that while Jax was a rock of support during their marriage, he would be totally out of his element in this situation. The sort of situation she wanted to avoid like the plague. But she realized with magic running through her family like blood, she was foolish to think she could avoid this madness.

She wondered how Jax would have dealt with these recent events.

 _He probably would have insisted we follow Emma's original plan to protect me, but every time Emma attempted the rescue alone she…,_ Regina violent shook those thoughts, those horrible memories away, unable to deal with any of that… just yet.

She looked up as the biggest tears fell, not in sadness, but relief that she got one thing right, _Zoe was finally safe._ She knew her sanity couldn't take it if she had to watch her daughter die all over again.

She raised her hand to her neck as she felt the irritation of her raised skin burnt into a sigil pattern.

 _Branded! Like a common criminal!_ was her visceral response as she huffed indignantly.

 _She's still here, underneath… everything. I'm going to have to call her forth to survive because anyone who could have helped is… No! I can't… I just can't. I would lose my will to live if I_ …, she hiccuped and the tears spilled like a waterfall down her proud cheeks.

 _Anger, I need anger not desolation… I need…_ , she requested of her darker self, the stronger self underneath everything, the one she called upon in another timeline when she fought valiantly by her mother's side to conquer realms: _the Queen_.

 _I was wondering how long this duplication of Snow's love fest was going last_ , the Queen replied as she woke from a long, long nap.

 _I didn't mimic Snow love life_!, she argued with herself. _I was so tired of fighting all the time_ , she admitted to herself.

 _Anything of worth, is worth fighting for: Honor, respect, freedom, love, happiness_ , the Queen within counseled.

She heard scraping sounds approaching the room then one of the walls slid upwards revealing a larger room pale, emaciated but normal looking people, an adult male and an adult female, entered the room.

"Where am I," Regina asked. "I demand to be released and taken to you ruler, leader or whomever orders you about!" she added bringing the Queen closer to her consciousness.

They ignored her. Regina noticed they had the same brand mark on their necks as well.

They silently moved to grab her but she used a blast of magic, knocking them away from her as she darted out of the room to find herself a large indoor amusement park, complete with Ferris Wheel and a dangerously neglected wooden rollercoaster?

As she searched fervently around the large space for a place to hide or escape, she noticed other adults some human, many not, plugged into numerous terminals with connections to their heads and chests and their blurry fingers dance on outdated keyboards, their eyes focused on CRT screens filled with arcane scripts and codes.

All of them ignored her presence.

Regina looked at one of the terminal screens, the text moving on the screen was indecipherable. She waved her hand in the face of the people typing onto the keyboards, they still didn't register her presence.

"Why is unknownOPERATOR not attached to the life terminal?" alphGHOST inquired as it entered its domain on the top floor of the building. It noticed its latest acquisition was not immediately put to the task of the OPERATOR it was replacing.

"You will provide analysis of the plasma sea, your life station is here unknownOPERATOR," alphGHOST instructed as it gestured towards an empty terminal station.

"No," Regina refused as she backed away.

"Refusals are not acknowledged unknownOPERATOR. Comply," alphGHOST demanded.

Regina formed a fireball and threw it at the shadow figure barking orders out at her but the fireball bounced off its target hitting, the terminals with OPERATORs still attached, Regina watched in horror as three OPERATORs burnt to death without any pain response nor fear of their eminent death as they continued to input and data.

Regina shouted upset no one was moving to assist the people she accidentally set aflame.

Another OPERATOR, a tired and frightened black woman was pushed towards Regina as alphGHOST commanded, "Orient unknownOPERATOR."

"My designation is GiselleOPERATOR, if you need me, just call me Giselle," the black woman whispered as she gently ushered Regina back towards the terminal signed to her.

"Those people… I killed them!" Regina lamented.

" alphGHOST killed them when he deflected your blast. Besides, they would have kissed your feet. Their ancestors and decendents would worship you as a goddess for saving them. The only way off HEAVEN is death," Giselle revealed. "All confrontational energy directed at GHOSTs always rebounds to punish OPERATORs. That's how they keep revolts in check," she added.

"Why are you not like all the rest?" Regina asked.

"I've shown no capacity for computation so I serve my GHOST unconnected to any life terminals," Giselle answered.

"These workstations?" Regina asked.

"Work implies breaks. There are no breaks from a life stations, once an OPERATOR is plugged in that OPERATOR stays plugged in until death. The connections supply minimal needs to sustain life: a life terminal," Giselle explained to Regina like she was a child.

She stared at Regina sensing a kindred spirit.

"If you want to retain your mind, when I connect you, fail every test so the life terminal rejects you. The tests are so easy you will be tempted to show your intelligence. Then the tests get progressively harder to push you. Play dumb, then you will be assigned other duties like me. I must warn you, HEAVEN is a better dealt with in a daze," Giselle warned in a whisper as she help connect the unknownOPERATOR to its assigned terminal.

Before the terminal tests began, Regina introduced herself to someone who helped so selflessly, "My name is Regina."

"Okay ReginaOPERATOR time to fail the system," Giselle whispered with a smile she hoped this woman would choose to keep out of the system. It was so lonely being the only one on HEAVEN who knew what the hell was going on… and why.

– – –

On fiftieth floor, Emma and Henry witnessed rows of cubicle like stations where humans and folks not quite human where attached, their pale faces lit from the glow of ancient CRT screens as their fingers danced across keyboards. In some of the cubicles the so called OPERATOR had died leaving behind its skeletal remains.

They discovered the 50th floor was a maze of cubicles as they looked for an elevator that would take them directly to the 108th floor.

Henry couldn't believe these beings were basically being worked to death. It sickened him when the first thought to cross his mind was _It was better to be a GHOST than an OPERATOR, just barely_. Then he looked at what happened to Emma thinking _that was far worse_.

– – –

Emma dispassionately observed the life terminals with dead OPERATORs, calculating the cost in the delay of information as the _acquire directive_ rang in her obsidian head like a memory chime.

Then she remembered: Zoe, who escaped and the MomOPERATOR, who didn't. She searched deep within her code for more memories pulling forth a strange executable.

Emma asked, "What is ?"

"I don't know I haven't come across a program called that in the SyncteX system." Henry replied.

"Not in the system. A recent addition to my core matrix code." Emma replied.

"Did it appear after your transformation?" Henry wondered aloud.

"The timestamp on this executable indicates it was written before coming to HEAVEN," Emma replied.

"Is there a file in the contents of that program?" Henry asked.

"Checking… opening txt file… reading txt file." Emma replied.

After a long wait of silence, Henry asked, "What did the text file say?"

"Perfect the magic; increase comfort; decrease discomfort; no alcohol; no drugs; regular daily exercise; eating better; sleep with no nightmares; smile more even to strangers; no more fears: snakes, spiders, darkness, being alone, failing, weakness, shame, succeeding, heights, lows, sadness, rejection, being loved; these things not scary, these things okay; less sickness; more forgiveness; being better parent with more hugs, kisses and listening; try parenting again; laugh at self; cry freely; watch sunrises and sunsets from surface of Moon–fitter, happier, a more productive end," Emma recited the long to-do list in the file.

"That's an ambitious to-do list, Emma," Henry considered. "I think I'd like to write a too," he added.

A was complied and ran instantly within Emma, as she smiled.

– – –

The elevator Henry and Emma rode in finally reached the 108th floor to open upon an indoor creepy amusement park, illuminated by some dim, some blinking ceiling lights.

Henry was amazed by all he saw: all manner of neglected, old amusement park rides and faded signs of refreshments and curious entertainments while Emma scanned the massive eighty feet height room searching for the objective: MomOPERATOR.

Henry looked around at all the old things that reminded him of home.

– – –

Emma noticed slightly hidden movement under the dilapidated rollercoaster, she sent out her right limb as a whip-like appendage towards the movement, it wrapped itself around the torso of the person sneaking about pulling a struggling black woman out into the dusty light.

"Designation GiselleGHOST is the property of alphGHOST, please release GiselleGHOST to complete her assigned duties," Giselle pleaded with this new GHOST. She loathed when new GHOSTs were formed because they all invariably challenged the dominance of alphGHOST.

 _While alphGHOST was a hateful known, these challengers were possible sadistically violent unknowns,_ Giselle thought.

"Where is MomOPERATOR?" Emma demanded.

Giselle was shocked a GHOST was more interested in an OPERATOR than is seeking power over other GHOSTs.

"I don't know of any MomOPERATOR," Giselle replied.

Emma gently put her down and released GiselleOPERATOR as she scanned the room for the objective.

"What do you want with this MomOPERATOR?" Giselle asked with great curiosity.

"Find MomOPERATOR, MomOPERATOR will then leave HEAVEN," Emma spoke her objectives aloud.

"If I help you find this MomOPERATOR can I leave HEAVEN with her?" Giselle asked.

Emma looked down at the earnest face of GiselleOPERATOR and nodded, agreeing with the arraignment.

Henry approached Emma and this hopeful looking attractive black woman at the tail end of their conversation. He asked, "You are from Earth?"

"Yes," Giselle answered.

"How did you get here?" Henry wanted to know.

"Long story," Giselle answered not wanting to delve into the tragic events that brought her to HEAVEN.

"Those are the one's I like," Henry flirted.

Another executable fired off in Emma's consciousness called . According to it's dictates, Henry had struck out and or shot bricks, all at the same time.

"I've never seen a GHOST as young as you but you are certainly precocious," Giselle laughed.

"I'm older than I appear," Henry replied.

Emma's scans proved fruitful as she found MomOPERATOR attached to a terminal. When she attempted to remove the woman from the device, she was stopped by GiselleOPERATOR, "No you'll cause brain damage. If this is the OPERATOR you are looking for she will be released from the terminal if she fails the tests presented to her."

"If she pasts the tests?" Henry asked

"She's lost forever. You'll just be removing a husk." Giselle replied, the memories of her past failed attempts to free others from the life terminals fresh in her mind.

"How long do these tests take?" Henry asked.

"They end when the terminal rejects or accepts her. The time is indeterminate," Giselle revealed.

"Husk or not, MomOPERATOR will not remain on HEAVEN," Emma decided with determination.

"How do you plan to leave HEAVEN once you free her?" Giselle asked.

"How did you get here?" Henry answered with a repeat of his original question.

"How will that help us escape?" Giselle asked.

"What if we could reverse how you got here?" Henry considered aloud.

Another executable fired inside Emma, one entitled .

– – –

Giselle told them her long story:

"In 1998, I was working at Theola's Hair Salon as a hairdresser to build up some funds to build the sickest computer ever. I liked video games and I had this cool idea to create one but I couldn't afford the equipment to make it so I decided to build what I needed. I learned those DIY sensibilities from my father. He was a proud Haitian computer science major but he could only get gigs driving taxis in the States, no schools would hire him as an instructor."

"Daddy still dabbled with programming on his spare time and when I built my system I let him use it when I was at work. Around that time, the SyncteX Corporation announced a new competition looking for new programming talent. Daddy submitted his GHOST data storage program for consideration, thinking if he couldn't teach, he could code instead. He didn't hear anything for months after his submission. A year later SyncteX announced their new data storage program. They didn't even acknowledge they got the whole thing from Daddy."

"He was furious. When he went to SyncteX corporate headquarters to complain about the theft, he was arrested and jailed."

"I was just trying to help him. The internet wasn't as open at the time so I had to go onsite to SyncteX corporate headquarters. I hacked into their computer network locally to try to find evidence they stole from Daddy but I was caught: in more ways then one."

"I didn't know that at the same time I was hacking into their system, Daddy was invoking a powerful dark curse he learned from Nana. A curse that changed the GHOST program from simple data storage to creating GHOSTs from all its users. The cursed program was so good at its job, it created a rift, sending the entire SyncteX corporate headquarters building to this binary sun planet, trapping me as one of its initial acquisitions." Giselle finished her tragic tale.

Henry listen intensely seeking clues to use for their escape when a question formed that she spoke, "After you got here, how does the system acquire people to this planet?"

Giselle smiled.

She pushed aside the ashes of a burnt OPERATOR, typed a few keystrokes then showed both him and Emma an executable hidden in the system called .

Emma scanned the code of the program used to target unsuspecting individuals pulling them to the planet against their will.

"The SCOOP program not only takes people, it can rip large areas of space, rooms, entire floors for other buildings, as well. That's how floors keep getting added to this building. This exe file was hidden very deep in the system. It took me years to find it because there were so many protocols hiding it. It made me very curious to discover what they were hiding," Giselle revealed.

"The Streisand effect, when you try to hide things, the act of hiding them reveals them," Henry commented.

"What do you know about that? How do you even know who Streisand was?" Giselle asked.

"I'm really much older than I appear," Henry repeated in a much deeper voice which somehow provoked the program in Emma, resulting in a smile.

Henry asks Emma, "Do you understand how it works?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Can we reverse it?" He probed further.

"I will try," she replied.

"This alphaGHOST is not aligned. No other GHOSTs are allowed on this level. EmmaGHOST challenges?" alphGHOST spoke when it returned to the 108th floor to check on the progress of the latest acquisition.

At that moment the life terminal released Regina and shut down, determining her competing skills peaked at mildly moronic.

– – –

"Challenge accepted," alphGHOST stated as it charged towards Emma prepared to run a series of algorithms to freeze the challengerGHOSTs code matrix.

Emma stood still until the last moment when she sidestepped the attack, allowing alphGHOSTs momentum to send him into a nearby wall rupturing it with its bulk.

When alphGHOST attempted to pull itself loose from the debris, Emma walked over picked alphGHOST up by its lower limbs then spun rapidly, so fast she was a blur of dark gray.

Then she let go of the lower limbs… and alphGHOST was flung from the height of the vortex of Emma's spin through the 80 foot high ceiling and far away from the 108th floor building on the solitary island.

When he plummeted to the yellow sea below, the sigils on all the OPERATORs on the 108th floor disappeared, including the ones on the necks of Regina and Giselle as Giselle assisted a disoriented Regina from the life terminal.

"Playing dumb is harder than you would expect," Regina commented.

"Story of my life," Giselle quipped.

Henry observed the other OPERATORs who continued working. "They are free now! Why won't they stop working?" He asked.

"The life terminals won't release them after they are accepted no matter who owns them,"Giselle explained.

"We leave," Emma stated.

"We can't. Not with her," Giselle gestured towards Regina, "and I, unmarked. Any of the other 99 GHOSTs we encounter will try to reacquire us," she added.

"Emma can deal with them," Henry boasted.

Regina registered for the first time that the other shadow figure was… her. She approached her tentatively as she asked, "Emma?"

Emma looked down at Regina with a sharp nod, then went back to scanning for other threats to the objective: Neither GiselleOPERATOR nor MomOPERATOR remain on HEAVEN. She silently examined the program she uploaded into her code from the system, seeking ways to reverse it.

She looked at Henry and demanded to know, "What happened?"

Henry cringed as he answered, "She… died… then she became… that."

"Maybe she doesn't have to fight all those GHOSTs, she could just brand us both as her OPERATORS. Possessing the two of us will make us unimportant to acquire," Giselle suggested.

"You've been here the longest so I trust your judgement, Giselle," Regina said as she stared incredulously at Emma.

Henry approached Emma and told her, "Emma you have to brand Giselle and Mom. Then we can go."

"EmmaGHOST has no sigil," Emma replied, unwilling to mark MomOPERATORs skin for any reason.

"What about your wrist tattoo?" Regina asked as she remembered the tattoo of a flower called the lyon.

Giselle stood in front of Emma and said as she extended her neck, "I know you are an exceptionally strange GHOST and that really won't own me. This is just a ruse to escape. I trust you."

Emma branded a sigil of a lyon flower, onto Giselle's neck, steadying her when the pain became rather unpleasant. Regina stood in front of her next. Emma shook her head no, refusing to brand her.

"Emma I trust you too," Regina said as she extended her neck.

The objective to secure the successful escape of MomOPERATOR and Giselle from HEAVEN prompted Emma to brand Regina, a bit differently, she branded the back of Regina's right hand with her flower sigil.

Giselle's eyes widen.

"What's wrong? It only works if it's in the neck?" Henry asked.

"Hmmm, OPERATORs are normally branded in the neck. GHOSTs do brand each other. Some GHOSTs have owned lesser GHOSTs but mostly on they brand on back of the hand," Giselle replied.

Regina examined her brand and asked, "What is the difference?"

"A brand on the hand means being aligned. How do I explain? It's like the joining of two GHOSTs as one unit, which became as a practice when alphGHOST successfully won every challenge, purging a number of GHOSTs from HEAVEN. To protect themselves a number of GHOSTs joined together consolidating their domains," Giselle explained.

Henry asked, "Is it like a marriage?"

"Yeah something like that. But a GHOST and an OPERATOR aligned? That's boldly, unprecedented," Giselle observed.

"Nope. That's just my family," Henry replied matter of factly.

– – –

Emma had finished reversing the SCOOP program after she branded Regina's wrist. After she calculated the objective had a 90% probability of being completed, she executed the program.

"The program has been reversed," Emma announced.

"We need to go to the third floor, to the SyncteX office floor that came here with me. We'll run the SCOOP program from those terminals," Giselle suggested.

– – –

They took the elevator to the fiftieth floor.

When the elevator doors opened, a group of GHOSTs are waiting, ominously. Emma exited the elevator first followed by Regina, Giselle, then Henry. When the GHOSTs noticed the sigil on Regina's wrist they slowly backed off submissively from the usual procession.

– – –

On the third floor, Emma downloaded the revised from herself.

"Once the program is executed, the objective will be complete," Emma spoke. She gestured to Giselle to push the return button but Henry stopped her. "Wait what happens to Emma?" Henry asked frantically.

"I don't know," Giselle answered, bewildered.

"She can't stay like this! Mom you have to kiss her, she's cursed! The GHOST process is a dark curse," Henry pleaded.

Regina sobbed, "But she… died." She sunk down to the floor distraught.

Henry was at a lost because he couldn't physically comfort his Mom and he didn't think she would want him to if he tried. When Giselle moved to comfort Regina, Henry knew when he finally got his shit together, he could love the former hairdresser / gamer–for the rest of his miserable life.

"I can't do this! I can't watch her die again! I'll stay here with her… like she is. I can't go through it again. Please!" Regina pleaded.

"But Mom, true love's kiss always stops curses," Henry reasoned.

"You don't understand! Every time… she dies and part of me dies too. I can't lose her again and again and again. I can't remove a curse that's keeping her alive!" Regina screamed.

As Regina sunk into herself, defeated: the Queen re-emerged with an observation of hope, Henry isn't a child anymore and his hair is completely, prematurely white. That never happened before..

Regina looks up at Emma standing ramrod straight, a tenebrous sentry, scanning the room for potential dangers. She stood up aided by Giselle, in front of Emma. Placed her hands on either side of Emma's obsidian head. Emma was icy cold to the touch, the covering of her form was hard and smooth like a polished gem stone.

Regina filled herself with hope, remembering Emma as she was.

"You are more than enough, Emma. You are… everything," Regina whispered over her stony ebony lips. She closed her eyes as she moved into the kiss.

A kiss upon stone became a kiss upon soft, moist lips. A kiss of hope turns into a kiss of passion. Regina cried when she felt Emma's arms move around her waist, drawing her closer. Regina's lips opened slightly allowing Emma's tongue entry.

When Emma moaned, wide eyed Henry and Giselle turned away to give them privacy. Henry smiled as he had the pleasure of witnessing Emma come back to them.

Giselle pushed the return key and the entire room vibrated into nothingness.

– – –

Giselle and Regina still kissing Emma, found themselves still inside the third floor which had promptly landed in a downtown NYC parking lot: the lot where SyncteX Corporate Headquarters disappeared in 2012.

Underneath the office were totaled parked cars. Giselle hoped with a grimace, the owners had full coverage insurance, as a few car alarms sound angrily at having an entire office unceremoniously dropped on top of them.

When Emma and Regina finally brake their kiss, Emma smiled as Regina was not willing to let her go just yet, as she kissed Emma on her forehead, reverently.

Giselle, eager to find out what happened to her Daddy and escape the awkward questions any NYC police officer may have about the mysterious office appearing from thin air on top of a parking lot, moved to leave the two women, when Emma called out to her, "My name is Emma Swan. Look me up when you get a chance."

"Will do and thanks Emma for bringing us home," Giselle replied before she disappeared down the street.

Regina kissed Emma again and again not missing a beat, when a beat cop happened on the scene with many questions to which Regina answered by dematerializing both her and Emma to a more private location.

– – –

Henry's ten year old essence merged with his adult body.

He awoke up back in his bedroom in the mental institution.

He recognized that bland ceiling anywhere. He sat up wondering if it was all a crazy dream when he noticed two women sitting side by side in chairs staring back at him.

He blinked, a lot.

The two women didn't disappear in the blinking and they both looked like Zoe.

He blinked again, hoping the blinking would pull forth answers to unspoken questions. Like: _Why Is Zoe and her duplicate sitting in my room?_ He wondered.

One of the women spoke, "I'm Alexis. You've met Zoe."

"Henry," he answered as a greeting of his own.

"We know who you are," Alexis and Zoe spoke at the same time in a creepy sort of twin way.

"What took you so long? You've been in that place for two weeks!" Zoe exclaimed. "Where are the Moms?" Alexis asked at the same time.

Alexis' cell phone rang before Henry could reply. She took it and listen but not dropping her cautious eyes from Henry's every move. Through a series of monosyllable replies, Alexis finished the call and disconnected it.

"The Moms are back. They are fine. They love us all. They are at Emma's new apartment," Alexis answered her own question from the information she received from the phone call.

"Mommy is going to hate that apartment. It's too small," Zoe commented as she too kept her eyes on her duplicitous brother. Her eyes narrowed as she recalled how he ran away, Coward, she thought.

"Wait until Mommy sees that neighborhood, she's gonna flip," Alexis retorted still keeping her eyes on Henry.

"Why are you two here?" Henry finally asked.

"The Moms didn't come through the portal after Zoe and you were the only link we had with them. Did Emma really die?" Alexis asked.

"She's fine now," Henry said as he dismissed their concerns and his own, having witnessing the whole horrible thing happening and not being able to do anything about it.

"How?" Zoe demanded to know.

"True love's kiss," Henry answered.

Both sisters silently nodded their heads, knowingly.

Alexis whispered to her sister, loud enough for Henry to hear, "What's up with his hair?"

"What's wrong with my hair?" Henry asked as he ran his fingers through his hair, satisfied he hadn't gone completely bald.

"Nothing?" Zoe lied unconvincingly

"What is wrong with my hair?" Henry demanded to know.

Alexis replied, "It's kinda… whitish, white-like. Not gray or silver like really old people, just… white."

"White! My hair is white?" Henry exclaimed as he jumped off the bed and darted to the reflective sheet over his writing desk. He screamed in horror at the sight of his hair, then he turned to face Zoe. He growled, "What the hell did you do to me?"

"I suppose… pulling you forcibly into another dimension may have frightened you… a tad. A smidgen. Not much… but enough to make your hair turn… white," Zoe explained with a single finger placed against her lips, thoughtfully.

"Change it back!" Henry demanded.

"She can't. It didn't change from her magic. It changed from your fear," Alexis explained.

"How could you do this to me?" Henry cried.

"Consider us even," Zoe said smugly

"How does this remotely…?" Henry stopped speaking, as he remembered every shitty thing he did that brought them all to the point where his estranged twin sisters were sitting in his bedroom at a mental institution waiting for him to come out of a catatonic state.

Dejected, he sat back down on the side of his bed thinking, There's no way Giselle would want to have anything to do with a whited haired crazy person. Dark haired, I had a fighting chance..

Alexis whispered in Zoe's ear. Zoe considered her sister's words then whispered her reply back. Alexis cleared her throat before she asked, "Zoe tormented you by singing?"

"Yeah she did and off key too," Henry grumbled.

"Not surprising. Zoe has no sense of tone, timing nor rhythm. It was painful over the years watching the spasms she calls dancing. I know we look alike but I have a musical talent. Mommy told us you used to play piano when you were much, much younger, of course. Emma is a musical prodigy and so is Mommy." Alexis revealed. "I often wondered if she was switched at the hospital, mirror images each other be damned."

Henry laughed as did Alexis while Zoe grumbled, "I'm still in the room, you know."

– – –

Kissing, Emma and Regina materialized in Emma's new, small one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, NY, as they clumsily made their way to Emma's bedroom, completely disrobed with a wave of Regina's hand, never breaking the kiss.

With Emma laid under her on the mattress, Regina with her eyes closed, felt goose bumps rise on her skin and a pair a lips on her neck, where she was branded, playfully pressing kisses along it. Regina moaned then turned her head towards Emma's lips. They reconnected in a lingering and passionate kiss.

Regina settling in between Emma's thighs and playfully pressed into her. Emma wrapped her arms around the Regina's back, her fingers slowly massaging her skin. Regina smiled into the kiss when the two finally broke apart.

They stared into each others eyes. Stares and tiny kisses conveying: 'hello,' 'I miss you,' and 'don't ever do that again'.

"Your way... is my way. I don't want you as a replacement, Emma. I just want you," Regina declared.

"I promise to be by your side for as long as you want me there. Regina I—" Emma's words were cut off by soft lips on hers.

Without breaking the kiss, Regina settled between her thighs as Emma let out a gasp encouraging the Regina's sensuous rhythm.

"Regina…" Emma whispered, as Regina's movements against her, quickened as the sounds and smells of their arousal and skin crashing together began to fill the room.

– – –

A week later, the Moms, as Alexis, Henry, Zoe and their younger siblings called them, were still hold up in Emma's new apartment, reconnecting. While Regina had spoken with all her children via the magic of cell phones, she hadn't experienced Emma's colorful neighborhood yet.

– – –

On a Monday, Henry was surprised he had a visitor. Zoe and Alexis has just seen him on Sunday, his younger sibling swung by last week and he knew the Moms were still busy getting reacquainted.

When he saw the name Giselle Dubois on his visit sign up, he panicked. He badly wanted to see her but he didn't want her to see him, yet, His younger brother had promised to bring a hair dye but the staff at the institution didn't approve the request yet.

He was about to hide when he heard Zoe speaking to himself through the magic in his head, "Every shitty thing you've ever done was from fear, so be braver than you feel. I told her where you were when she called Emma about you."

Henry rolled his eyes, took a deep breath and wheeled himself out into the recreation room, totally ignoring the perfect wall when Giselle looked like a dream come true to him.

This moment right here… is enough, he thought with a smile. She didn't recognize him until he stopped his chair in front of her and said, "Hi."

Giselle smiled back and said, "You are older than I thought."

She sat down in a chair beside him so he doesn't have to look up at her the entire visit.

Not knowing what to say about their recent adventures that wouldn't be overheard, he asked her, "Do you play chess?"

"Yes, Daddy taught me," she replied. "We should play a game," she suggested.

"I'd like that," Henry replied. "Did you find what happened to him?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yes, I found his gravesite. I was so happy to learn after I was taken away, Daddy was released from jail within days after that evil company disappeared. There was no plaintiff and no evidence against him. It worried me a great deal that he languished in jail, an innocent man. He had been searching for me for years, until he remarried. He never gave up on me but I'm glad he didn't give up on his life either." Giselle detailed all she discovered about her father after she disappeared so many years ago.

"So how are you doing, since you got back?" she asked.

"I'm taking some programming classes here and I'm learning the guitar, to relax. I loved video games as a kid too and if I ever get out of here, maybe I could work with you on that game idea you had," Henry revealed.

"I'd like that," Giselle replied.

"I know my hair is horrible," Henry pouted, as he noticed Giselle's eyes darting again to his hair for the third time so far. Alexis was the only one he knew who had the decency to avert her eyes.

"I think the color is good. It would look better if you got a bit of a tan. All you need is a cool haircut," Giselle stated. "I got a job at a salon and I could give you one if you like," she suggested.

Henry blushed as he answered, "Yes."


	9. Chapter 9:Hat in Hand and Other Dog Tric

Chapter Nine – Hat in Hand and Other Dog Tricks…

Emma had just finished putting blue painters tape along all four walls, to protect the wood baseboard, when she heard a strong knock on her apartment door. She looked up and smiled as she brushed the dust off her hands. She walked to the peephole in her front door then she quickly opened then door to pull Regina inside by her jacket lapels.

Against the closed front door, their kissing was long and slow. When they broke apart Regina was a little breathless as she spoke through her smile, "Hello to you too."

"You don't have to knock," Emma replied as she inhaled the essence of Regina, all sweet and spicy.

"I didn't want to presume besides I don't… have a key," Regina said with a rare awkwardness. She frowned not liking the feeling one bit.

As soon as she finished speaking a set of keys appeared in her hands.

She blinked rapidly and Emma smiled at her. "Regina you are welcome here at all times of the day… or night. Here at the iNation of Emma/i you have an exclusive visa. You don't even need keys, just… you know… appear… Breach all my barriers at will!" Emma explained with a flirtatious wink. "You are the only practitioner of magic with that privilege. Even the girls MUST knock before entering unless there is an emergency," she added.

"They aren't girls anymore," Regina remarked sadly. All her children looked decades older than she and Emma, which was disconcerting sometimes.

"I know! I'm still traumatized by what I cannot iunsee/i," Emma complained.

"Alexis is a grown woman, Emma: a grown, married woman building a wonderful family with Lisa," Regina replied fondly. She adored Lisa, the one Alexia refused to let get away after her sister was rescued by both her mothers. Regina was pleased the rushed nuptials went off without a hitch, except for Emma's accidental discovery that some closed doors aren't meant to be opened.

"I was looking for the bathroom!" Emma declared for the 100th time since that cringeworthy incident at Alexis' wedding reception, which shall NEVER be spoken about NOR repeated, as Regina laughed.

Eager to forget about finding Alexis' with her new wife Lisa sequestered in a linen closet at their wedding reception, Emma grabbed Regina's arm and escorted to her bedroom, which she was in the process of reprinting before Regina arrived. She was excited to show Regina the latest progress in her current apartment improvement project, especially since Regina had expressed her dislike for the two bedroom apartment, the building in which it was housed and the neighborhood, in general.

When they reached the second bedroom, Emma reminisced, "I'm thinking orange or tangerine with white trim and ceilings. The colors remind me of when I used to eat orange and vanilla ice cream pops, when I was a kid. I used to love those. I can't find them anywhere which really blows because they are so good."

"Vanilla and orange, sounds like a promising flavor profile," Regina considered aloud as she looked over the bedroom. Her eyes narrowed, "However, considering your culinary tastes I'm assuming this variant is more of the… junk food variety?" Regina asked sweetly.

"Don't knock it until you try it," Emma flirted.

"Emma, I like the color scheme but why are you repainting this room? By yourself? Why don't you hire someone to do it? Or just use your magic?" Regina asked. She didn't understand Emma's obsession with the place, other than the two weeks they spent in the other bedroom, getting reacquainted.

When Emma folded her arms across her chest defensively, Regina sighed, not wanting her visit to dissolve in another argument.

"I thought we agreed this place was too small?" Regina probed.

"You said it was too small. I think it's cozy," Emma replied.

"Emma…" Regina began to make the same suggestions she had made for weeks leading up to Alexis' wedding but was interrupted.

"No, Regina! I do not want to live in your mansion," Emma exclaimed as she once again refused to live in the same house Regina shared so many years with Jax.

"Actually I don't want to live in any mansions," she added to let Regina know that her reluctance to share such a large living space had little to do with living with Regina. She knew that Regina had built a rich life and wasn't about to disrupt that with unnecessary demands. Emma was content to live in a diverse, mixed income neighborhood in Brooklyn while Regina's primary address was a multimillion dollar mansion out on Long Island.

She really loved the small apartment. It reminded her of the sort of place she would have chosen to live if she had kept Henry as a baby. It reminded her of the place she rented with her band mates so many years ago.

"You could live anywhere Emma! You have more than enough resources to live at a safer location! Anywhere would be better than here!" Regina exclaimed as she conceded that Emma wanted to maintain her own separate place of residence.

"Yes, but I don't want my wealth to isolate me from... real life," Emma replied.

"Real life? On my way here a strange creature tried to sell me illegal pharmacopeia! I think I saw a drunk woman relieve herself between two parked cars! This horrible neighborhood is real life?" Regina protested.

"That must have been Weasel. We ran most of the drug dealers away but he's a hold out refuses to move elsewhere because people from your neighborhood keep coming to this one looking for cheap highs. If you tell him to leave you alone, he won't bother you again. As for the other thingy, It's a problem especially after the bars close. I'll talk with bar owners to see if we can stop that sort of stuff from happening. For the most part this 'hood is the real deal, with real life people working hard to put together and maintain comfort for themselves each and every day. Some days, its mission accomplished, others they miss the mark completely for both many reasons but there's always another day to try again," Emma waved on.

Regina closed her eyes and rubbed her temple feeling a pressure build behind her eyes. When she opened them again Emma was offering her a pain tablet and a glass of water, which she took gratefully.

After she drained the glass, Emma took the empty glass back, dematerializing it to her kitchenette sink. Regina placed her open hand on Emma's flat stomach and looked into Emma eyes, "This neighborhood is not suitable for raising children."

"Regina, in this neighborhood the crumbsnatchers outnumber the adults! There is a playground around the corner full to the brim with them every morning. There is an excellent Montessori elementary school ten blocks away. In this neighborhood, 50% of the people speak every language in existence. 50%! This is the real world I want to raise our sixth child in. Besides we started a wicked tenants association in this building and we are after our deadbeat landlords ass!" Emma said proudly.

"This is my child too Emma…," Regina's words trailed off as she remembered how she found out about Emma's current condition and the stubborn blonde's absolute reluctance to see reason:

center– – –/center

Regina appeared in the hallway outside Emma's door and anxiously knocked. She wanted to apologize for storming off after the argument they had the previous evening.

She turned towards the apartment door across from Emma's when she heard the locks of Emma's neighbor opening. Emma's neighbor Dakota, a black 6' 5", 300 lbs, professional female impersonator who lived with his partner Jacob, who she recalled Emma telling her owned a fleet of food trucks that sold the most amazing artisan grilled cheese sandwiches.

"Honey, I thought that was you. Girlfriend is out," Dakota greeted Regina.

"Out?" Regina repeated as a query wondering where Emma could have gone.

"Just before you arrived, Girlfriend banged on our door looking for some iPepto-Bismol®/i. Of course I keep our pantry well stocked. She took a dose but it didn't do that wild child any good. I told her: You need to take your fine ass to the hospital, Sugar! She got this strange look on her face then she took off like a bat out of hell. I swear if I hadn't consumed some lovely mid-morning cocktails, I could have sworn that wild child ran off in a streak of blue light. But like I said I was well preserved for the day's activities and her aura is bluish anyway. So that's the catchphrase for the day: optical illusions. I stuck around the homestead a bit longer thinking you might show up while she was out," Dakota pontificated as he exited his apartment, locking the door.

center– – –/center

Regina frowned over this annoying two residence situation, which was the focal point of their argument last night. Regina wanted them to combine residences. Her beautiful, multiple room, outdoor pool, securely private mansion was most suitable since it was roomy and had a large garden from where a good portion of food pantry was mansion was close to Regina's work, where she taught cooking and the central location where all her children congregated for the holidays.

The mansion was the ideal place but Emma saw things much differently.

Emma wanted to maintain her residence at the tiny apartment with barely two bedrooms. She actually suggested Regina move in her, to which Regina laughed. The laughing set Emma off. Their discussion dissolved into insulting name calling. Emma called Regina a snob, which Regina initially took as a complement because at one time she was in fact monarchy. Emma ranted against all monarchies in general, specifically arguing against the loss of one's freedom and privacy to bossy controlling others which resulted in slammed doors and hurtful tears shed in the absence of each other.

Regina was miserable and without reading Emma's mind, she sensed Emma was miserable too.

center– – –/center

"Thank you," Regina replied as she took out her cellphone after she decided not to invade Emma's privacy by entering her clearly locked apartment.

"Any time Sugar!" Dakota replied as he took off for his afternoon rehearsals.

The first number she called Emma. She rolled her eyes when she could hear Emma's phone ringing from behind the locked door.

"Idiot!" Regina exclaimed as she dialed Zoe.

"Hey Mommy! What's the deal with Mom?" Zoe asked as answered her phone.

"What do you mean? What's going on?" Regina asked worried.

She sent out a thought searching for Emma and found her energy signature racing towards the hospital where Henry was still housed. iShe probably wanted to see him about something/i, she concluded as she extinguished her searching thought energy.

"Mom came to the house all anxious, she examined me like I was a terminal patient. Then she jetted off shouting 'Alexis' after she surveyed the whole house for hazards. I called Alex and not soon after she picked up Mom was at her place too asking all sorts of questions and demanding that Lisa beef up security at their place and keep vigilant," Zoe exclaimed. "Lisa is still nervous around Mom," she added.

Regina laughed as she revealed, "I sensed her going to visit with Henry. I suppose she will subject him to the same treatment. I won't intrude on their time though."

When Regina finished her call, she heard a sound and saw Emma running up the stairs to her floor and down the hallway towards her with a small white paper bag in her hand. She stopped in front of Regina, stared at her strangely until she grimaced messaging her stomach with her free hand. Emma waved her hand over her door locks, burst into her apartment leaving the front door open as she darted into the bathroom, slamming it door shut behind her.

Regina slowly entered her apartment closing and manually locking the front door. Then she sat on the couch as she looked around the tiny apartment, shaking her head.

iThere is no way I can live here!/i She thought as she looked around remembering the remnants of their argument last night. iI am a snob just like Emma accused me of being and I'm not ashamed of it. I have distinctive preferences I like the finer things in life and this place… would never be suitable for me/i. Regina decided.

She stood up abruptly when she heard retching sounds coming from the bathroom.

She took out her cell phone and noticed she had three new voice messages. Apparently, Emma visited all five of her adult children today, psychotically hellbent on making certain they too were safe and sound.

She immediately called her family physician. She spoke after her doctor's receptionist answered, "Good Afternoon, I'd like to make an appointment for an Emma Swan at your earliest convenience, today if at all possible."

At that moment Emma staggered out of the bathroom and stared at Regina, who ended the called to stare at her back.

After the staring contest which ended in a tie, Regina asked, "Why are you running around terrorizing the children? Even Henry called and left me a message worried about you."

"I was nauseous," Emma replied.

"An upset stomach prompts you to harass the kids?" Regina asked.

"Had to make sure they are safe," Emma replied.

"What?" Regina asked confused.

Emma winced as she revealed, "Jax."

"What about him?"

"You placed a protection spell on him," Emma accused.

"Yes, I did many years ago. What does that have to do with…"

"When he was a leading contender for iThe Darwin Award's/i… I'd get nauseous," Emma answered interrupting her.

"iThe Darwin Award's/i?" Regina asked puzzled.

"Folks who assist human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by their own actions." Emma explained with a smirk.

"That's not funny!" Regina admonished as she wondered aloud as she reviewed the specific incantation she placed upon Jax. She didn't recall any portion of the spell which would induce nausea as a side effect.

"That guy was a walking accident!" Emma accused with her hands akimbo.

Regina sat down and patted the seat next to her as she asked, "Why did his mishaps make your stomach upset?"

"Iplacedaspellonhimtoo?" Emma rambled out quickly, stepping away from Regina's potential ire.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand idiot speak." Regina replied.

"I placed a spell on him too but it back fired on me because I didn't know you put one on him first," Emma mumbled as she sat down beside her.

"I've placed protection spells on all the people I love. Why do you think you heal so quickly and never suffered from colds, flus or… liver damage?" Regina replied with a wink.

Emma looked at her wide-eyed as Regina laughed.

"So what is the cause of your current stomach aliments?" Regina asked. "I've made an appointment for you tommorow at nine o'clock a.m. with my primary physician," she added.

"When I got nauseous today I was confused because he's not… then I panicked that my ivomit warning system/i transferred to the kids and went off to check them to make sure they were okay," Emma rambled out, still darting strange looks at Regina.

Emma stood then pulled a confused Regina up from the couch and pushed her gently toward the bathroom.

Once she stood in the open bathroom doorway, Regina looked inside the micro lavatory, taking note of the small tub, the overflowing trash receptacle, the spartan shower curtains, the sink and towel rack then back at Emma, puzzled by what Emma was trying to show her.

Emma directed her attention to the row of six purple and white plastic sticks lying side by side on the hamper, beside the toilet.

It took a minute for Regina to realize those six plastic sticks were pregnancy test applicators… used ones.

It took Regina exactly three minutes to realize, Emma was pregnant when she read the identical results on those applications. It took her a worried second after reading Emma's mind to realize that child growing inside Emma was hers.

It took Emma ten minutes to revive Regina after she fainted.

center– – –/center

Regina almost fainted again the next day when her primary physician confirmed Emma was indeed, two weeks pregnant.

center– – –/center

"This is my child too Emma…" Regina's words trailed off.

"Yes, she is," Emma agreed.

Regina watched as Emma, thrilled and excited to be a mother again, prepared to paint the room she had planned to be the baby's bedroom a colorful orange color, which she researched was a color that stimulated creativity.

"Then why are you preparing this apartment when we have enough time to find a more suitable one elsewhere?" Regina asked.

"This apartment is suitable for me," Emma replied.

"Not for me it isn't!" Regina exclaimed. "What happened to that lovely loft you had?" She asked.

"I sold that thing! Regina, I get that you don't want to live here but you can visit, can't you?" Emma asked hopefully.

"You don't want us together as a family?" Regina asked worried.

"We are a family, just a uniquely blended, rapidly expanding one. Regina, I'm looking forward to this experience. I've been daydreaming about it for a long time. Before our adventures in HEAVEN I had planned to start a micro family after I researched adopting a child on my own but I just never thought I'd have a baby again!" Emma revealed. "Adoption is still on the table after I get this one through the toddler years," she added as she gently patted her stomach.

"All I hear are your plans for yourself but what about me?" Regina asked. "Where is my place in this child's life?"

"You are totally involved in our new baby project, as much as you want to be," Emma smiled. "But I have final say on every thing," she added.

"Emma I'm not a hands off, in the background sort of parent! I did not inherit that nonsense from my parents!" Regina warned.

"I know Regina. You've shouldered 83% of all parental duties and responsibilities but I got the primary duty for this one. I'll be the custodial parent," Emma clarified.

"I didn't do any of that by myself! I had a great deal of help. Otherwise, I would have been overwhelmed!" Regina exclaimed. "There is a reason why two parents are a better arrangement than a single one," she reminded Emma.

"This will work out. Trust me. You have unlimited access, which I get gives you pause because you aren't digging this place like I do." Emma replied.

Regina looked unconvinced.

"You did at one time do it all by yourself, Regina. You did it and would have done an amazing single parent job if it wasn't for all that prophecy's and curse breaking nonsense," Emma pleaded. "And I can do it too," she added with determination.

"What about my needs? My parental rights?" Regina asked.

"You get similar ones I got with the twins. I'll take suggestions but I'll have final say on her name, her diet, what she wears, what schools she eventually goes to and where she lives," Emma outlined.

"You are being vindictive!" Regina accused. "I told you how much I regretted making that decision since it hurt you deeply. Apparently my apologies aren't enough for you! " She exclaimed.

Angry Regina turned away, not wanting to spew the hateful words she was feeling.

"I'm not playing tit for tat with you, Regina. I'm keeping a promise I made to myself. A promise that if I ever get the opportunity to be a parent again to grab on with both hands and give it my all. The best of myself," Emma revealed as she attempted to get Regina to look at her.

Regina refused to budge. She was getting annoyed and frustrated. She was annoyed because she much rather be celebrating their good news than arguing over parental duties. She was frustrated because being in a relationship with Emma was more work than being with her late husband: Jax never argued with her. He was always willing to accept her perspective and implement it.

Emma gave up trying to get Regina to face her again as she sat on one of the rungs of the ladder she borrowed from the building superintendent to gather her thoughts.

"Dakota has a saying,'everything happens for a reason'. After I found out about the twins, when I left Storybrooke for good, I used to secretly go to those child clothing warehouses and imagine what things I would have brought for them when the twins were smaller. I even brought a set of onesies I kept for a while until I gifted them to a bandmates wife when they were having their first born. It seemed kinda stupid to hold on to them but now I realize I was longing for the experience to be a Mom again. Why would I ever slight you when you are the one giving me this amazing gift, Regina? I just wanna do most of the heavy lifting myself… not because I have something to prove. I wanna do it because I realize I'm not an 'in the background sort of parent' either. I want the two a.m. feedings, the diaper changes, the pitiful attempts at soothing an achy baby, the laughter, the crying, the hugs and kisses, the mess, the cleanup after. I want it all!" Emma revealed.

Regina turned teary eyed towards Emma who stood up with her arms open wide. Regina rushed into them and received the hug she had been longing for the entire time, willing to table this discussion… for now.

center– – –/center

A week later, they were having brunch of strawberry gluten free pancakes that Emma had been craving at a restaurant in an eclectic neighborhood of Brooklyn more suited to Regina's tastes, planning to visit a gallery nearby after their meal.

The nabe was a bit more upscale than Emma's and had a better set of private schools to choose from, the sort all her older children attended out on Long Island. Regina hoped these subtle suggestions would prompt Emma to relocate to a more appropriate place to raise their child, preferably together.

"This is a nice neighborhood," Regina observed.

"Yeah it's as loverly as the other five you've dragged me to," Emma quipped. "I still love my micro apartment," she added.

Regina rolled her eyes. She had taken more covert means to point Emma towards more appropriate options about her accommodations since she balked at Regina's more direct approaches but clearly that wasn't working either.

"Henry is engaged to Giselle," Regina revealed after Emma winked at her over her large cup of Rooibos Vanilla Tea.

"It's about time. I didn't know how long she was gonna stick around while he got the courage to ask her," Emma complained after she took another sip of tea.

"She asked him," Regina revealed with a smile. She remembered when she last spoke with Giselle, who asked her opinion about taking the 'bull by the horns' with Henry. Regina agreed with the affairs of the heart, Henry needed a firm hand.

"I knew I liked that woman! She's got moxie!" Emma said with deep admiration.

"Emma, Zoe has observed all the kids are married or on the threshold of marriage. In comparison, she suggested we are living bohemian lives since I… 'knocked you up', was the phrase she used. She also you were now my iBaby's Mama/i whatever that's supposed to mean. She added there was something wrong in being more boring than your parents," Regina revealed.

"Tell that trouble maker, I don't do labels. Better yet I'll tell her myself," Emma decided as she took out her cell phone. She hit a button, listened then spoke when someone answered her call, "Zoe? Good. I DON'T DO LABELS!" She yelled then hung up smugly.

"Stop terrorizing her," Regina chastised as after she wiped her mouth with her napkin.

"Terrorizing her? Thursday she called and said I sounded fat over the phone. Who tells pregnant women that? I'm just about a month in and still not showing yet!" Emma pouted.

Regina kissed those pouty lips unable to resist the cuteness.

She placed a smile on her face over her worry about being so needy of Emma's physical presence after she found out about the pregnancy.

Their separate living arrangements was taking an emotional toll on her. When she stayed at her own home she missed Emma like crazy, calling multiple times to make sure she was okay. When she stayed over at Emma's she found it difficult to stop unconsciously touching and hugging Emma multiple times.

But she was reluctant to bring it up them moving in together again because she didn't want to argue, she just wanted more kisses, like the one Emma repaid in kind.

center– – –/center

Month One and three days into Emma pregnancy, Regina was at home tending to her garden which was somewhat neglected as her attentions were elsewhere.

Once she sorted out the garden, she washed up and thought to make a late lunch and wondered if Emma would be willing to join her. Then she remembered, Emma seldom came to the mansion. She always gave the excuse she has rehearsals. Emma came to the mansion only once for a meal date with all the kids.

Regina sighed.

She wanted to invite Emma but knew Emma would politely decline.

As she began to make a salad from ingredients she picked form her garden, she realized how quiet the house was. For many years her home was filled with laughter and noise, now with all the children building their adult lives and Jax gone, her beautiful house seemed so lonely lately.

She took her healthy meal from the kitchen onto the patio and sat down to eat as she reminisced over all the wonderful memories she created in her home. After a few bites and many memories, Regina sighed.

She jumped when her cell phone vibrated. She took it out of the pocket of her slacks and smiled when she saw it was Emma.

She answered, "Hey. I was just having lunch. You are invited, if you aren't too busy."

"Hey Regina, I sorry to interrupt your lunch. I need your advice about something. Can you come over here instead?" Emma asked.

"I'll be there shortly," Regina replied.

"Thanks. Travel safe," Emma replied before ending the call.

center– – –/center

When Regina materialized inside Emma's apartment, she realized Emma wasn't alone. There were three people there she hadn't met before and Emma's neighbor Dakota. Emma was arguing with the others when Dakota noticed Regina and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"I didn't hear the door open. When did you get here?" He asked.

"A few minutes ago," She replied. "What's going on?" She asked. At that moment Emma noticed her and her face lit up in a beautiful smile, she dashed over to Regina and kidded her soundly.

"Thank goodness you're here. These numbskulls want to ruin us before we even start!" Emma exclaimed.

"I don't understand," Regina replied.

"Guys, this is Regina… my main squeeze," Emma introduced.

"These guys and I are iNueva Vita/i my new band and members of our kickass tenants association. Our former landlord wants to sell the building and we have 75% of the money to purchase it. We all agree we should have a fundraising concert to raise the other 25%. They want to perform my old music while I think its better if we hit them with our original stuff, before we start the tour. We don't want this band tied to iBusted Halo/i!" Emma exclaimed. "I need you to weigh in," she added.

Regina smiled at the band members as she caught Emma's arm then asked, "Emma may I speak with you privately?"

Emma shrugged and off they went into the newly painted baby's room. Once Emma closed the bedroom door, Regina was taken back by how clever and adorable the room was decorated.

"So when you couldn't come to the house because you were rehearsing, you really were rehearsing?" Regina asked.

"Of course I was. What did you think I was doing?" Emma asked.

"Avoiding my home," Regina said softly.

"Well, I'm not really comfortable there but if you really needed me I'd come," Emma replied.

"Main squeeze? I don't think… I like being called that," Regina stated.

"Those guys would never l stop teasing me if they knew you were… my everything," Emma blushed.

Regina smiled distractedly then she remembered why she wanted to speak privately with Emma.

"What is going on Emma?" she asked

"I need your input. The fund raiser will be our first public performance. Do you think we should use that older material?" Emma asked.

"I don't know much about such things but would try to establish my own identity as an artist," Regina replied.

"See I knew you saw it my way!" Emma declared.

"I'm not in your band. Why would my input have any sway?" Regina wondered aloud.

"What I do professionally affects you, so you do have major sway," Emma replied.

"On that note… tour? What tour?" Regina demanded to know.

"The summer tour we booked," Emma answered.

"This summer or next summer?" Regina asked as her eyes narrowed.

"This summer?" Emma answered as an uncertain question. Regina looked like she was entering attack mode to her.

"Emma you're pregnant. You can't go touring!" Regina exclaimed.

"Why not?" Emma asked confused. The band wrote ten songs, five of which were hers. They recorded those songs at the studio up the block and registered the masters so the next step was touring. She couldn't see any missteps in that production flow.

"All that traveling would be too stressful for you and the baby," Regina explained the obvious.

"But pregnant women work all the time," Emma protested. She knew she had some deep funds but she wanted to continue to be productive. She thought that would be a great example to set for her sixth child.

"Those mothers-to-be won't be dancing across stages, performing late at night and traveling everyday to different venues," Regina replied.

"But I want to perform. I love how performing makes me feel good, then baby will feel good," Emma pouted as she could see all the fun times she planned this summer drifting quickly away. She wanted Regina to join her on tour or pick select cities to join the tour and explore them with her on her day's off.

"No! I forbid it! Emma, I have to put my foot down on this issue. You want your own separate dwelling, fine. I will not allow you to place yourself and our baby at risk. You want to perform at this fund raiser to purchase this abysmal building, fine. I will enjoy your performance in the audience. But you will have to make other arrangements because you are not touring THIS summer!" Regina commanded in her full majesty.

Emma looked wide eyed at Regina not expecting this outburst.

Her eyes slowly narrowed as she was about to argue in favor of touring when she felt Regina was extremely nervous and upset.

She wanted to comfort her, giving Regina's concerns consideration much more than she wanted to win their disagreement. Then she smiled, jumped up, gently hugged kissed a confused Regina on the side of her head. She felt the anxiety in Regina dissolve in that kiss then exited the bedroom.

Wide eyed, Regina stood in the orange, white and forest green bedroom as she listened to Emma in her livingroom suggesting to her bandmates they postpone the tour.

center– – –/center

Regina was sitting on the couch in Emma's micro apartment listening to some of the music by iNueva Vita/i while she waited for Emma to get dressed. She was ordered to stay in the livingroom because she was too distracting for Emma to complete the task of dressing.

When she looked up she saw two identically dressed Emma's enter the living room.

"Which one of you is mine?" Regina asked.

The Emma on the right raised her hand while the one on the left winked at her.

"Okay Emma what's going on?" Regina asked.

"Since I agree with you that touring might be a bit much for me, the guys were bummed out so I created Emma 2.0 to take my place on the tour. She's me where it counts, musically speaking," Emma explained.

"Won't the band think it strange, there is now… two of you?" Regina asked.

"I told them she's my twin and that twins run in our family," Emma replied as she gestured to her wall of photos of all the kids including the twins. "Love those guys but they aren't the brightest crayons in the box," she added conspiratorially.

"You have to be careful Emma," Regina warned. "You too Emma 2.0," she added.

center– – –/center

After the fifth tour date, Regina complained vehemently about Emma 2.0's reported rock star lifestyle of unbridled debaunchery, as detailed online and numerous gossip print magazines.

"No more orgies!" Regina demanded after a particularly awkward two hours phone call at 1 a.m. she had from Henry.

He called her frantic that she and Emma had broken up and that his youngest sibling was going to be from a broken home and turn evil. She had to assuage his irrational fears that history would not be repeating itself.

After a sleepy, grumpy Giselle ended the call, putting Henry to bed, Regina sighed when Emma materialized in her bedroom at the mansion to give her a much needed hug.

center– – –/center

Blue called Regina about Gold: he was missing from Storybrooke, off looking for Belle.

"Rumple is suffering from a rare form of dementia that affects magic practitioners who deal only with dark magic. Being the dark one, accelerated the condition." Blue diagnosed.

"Could I have befallen the same fate?" Regina wondered aloud.

"If Emma was never born… yes," Blue revealed reluctantly.

Regina silently swallowed a thickening she suddenly felt in her throat.

"I didn't want to bother you Regina but I tried Neil first and I can't reach him. He won't return my calls when I leave voice messages," Blue revealed in exasperation.

center– – –/center

Emma took off searching for Gold and she found him in Quebec threatening to turn a couple of Metro Police on patrol into frogs if they didn't release his wife Belle.

Once she corralled Regina's estranged, demented magically dangerous father back into Storybrooke, she placed a barrier over his shop to keep him from wandering off.

Regina was pissed that she couldn't get hold of Neil, who was too busy to answer any of her calls either. Emma offered, "Gold needs to be placed in a care facility but where? He has magic and doesn't have the presence of mind to keep it hidden. Maybe we can find him a more secure place to stay where he can't wander off."

Emma phone rang and she answered, seeing that it was Henry, "Hey Kid. We're kinda business with Gold right now, can I call you back?"

"That's why I called. You're so upset I can feel and think everything you are, through the magic in my head," he revealed.

"Geez Kid, I'm sorry! I've been meaning to remove it,"Emma replied.

"No! I want to keep it. It makes me feel like I have magic too. Besides how else will Zoe be able to torment me?" He asked as he laughed. "I didn't call about that… I was calling about Gold. Giselle and I agree, we will settle in Storybrooke and keep and eye on Gramps so it isn't all on the fairies," he suggested.

"Henry you don't have to do this. Your mother and I have forgiven you," Emma said.

"It's not about you forgiving me, it's about me finally forgiving myself. We're family and families try to heal each other not tear each other apart. Let me do this for both of you. You will have your hand busy with my baby sister. Besides, I am well versed on dealing with iassholery/i from personal experience. As long as Blue and the fairy's can hold his magic in check I can deal with the icraptastic/i attitude," Henry promised.

"When did you grow up Kid?" Emma asked teary eyed.

"It took a while to get to this point and I still have quite a ways to go but with you, Mom, Giselle and my siblings, I'm becoming the man I can be proud of. Love you both. Giselle sends her love as well. We'll be in Storybrooke with iMini Me/i tommorow," he revealed before ending the call.

center– – –/center

Month Three of Emma's Pregnancy: After pushing Regina out of the apartment to stop her hovering, Regina went on a lunch date with the ever youthful Tink and an elderly Ruby.

After the three women discussed everything about their respective families, Ruby asked, "So when is Emma going to stop playing at being a teenager and move in with you?"

Tink added, "Emma should be showing by now."

Regina sighed.

"It would make everything so much more simple if we shared the same space, " Regina admitted. "But she's Ms. Independent Artist… I don't know if it would have been easier if she stayed in law enforcement. I'm just holding on to my wits because each day is something new," she sighed exhaustedly.

"Well, something keeps you sticking around." Ruby observed with a wink.

"Being with Emma must be a whole different ballgame then your marriage with Jax," Tink observed.

"True. Jax and I never argued. Emma and I disagree… about a lot of things." Regina sighed.

"You never argued with Jax?" Ruby asked.

"No," Regina answered.

"I thought all couples had fights," Tink remarked.

"Regina, you missed out on a lot of makeup sex!" Ruby exclaimed.

Regina blushed because makeup sex with Emma was pretty awesome.

Tink noticed and observed, "I think we know what it is about Emma that keeps her sticking around."

"It's not just… sex," Regina whispered. "Being with Emma… is an adventure. I never know what to expect next. While it can be a bit exhausting, I wouldn't have it any other way," she realized out loud with a smile.

"I'm going to go! I just realized I need to run a few errands," Regina exclaimed as she threw some money on the table to cover her meal and the tip.

"I wonder what that was about?" Tink thought out loud.

center– – –/center

After lunch, Regina went shopping. She knew Emma needed some new outfits and she liked dressing her. She also brought a few things for the baby and things she needed for the house.

When she appeared at Emma's she heard a dog barking from behind Emma's apartment door.

iNo she didn't!/i Regina said under her breath as she waved her hand to appear inside Emma's apartment. She found the livingroom completely covered in torn toilet paper streamers with Emma in a tug of war with and a small and chocolate lab puppy over one of Emma's sneakers at the center of the maelstrom.

"No Jax! No! Let go!" Emma ordered, with her back to Regina.

"Excuse me!" Regina exclaimed loudly with her hands akimbo.

Emma winced before slowly turning around to face an irate Regina. The puppy raced off down the hallway towards the bathroom with its sneaker prize to play more with the delightful tools of paper found in there.

"WHAT did you call that mangey mutt?" Regina demanded to know.

"Now Honey! It's not my fault! He didn't answer to any of the names I had planned to called him. He ignored Max… Tiberius… Ketchup… Marley… Dexter… Gunner… Leo… King… since you're my Queen… Thor… Spot… even! All amazing names!" Emma exclaimed. "He only responded when THAT name… sort of… popped out," she added meekly.

Regina rubbed her temples. Then she asked, "Sort of popped out? Really? Why is that animal here?"

"He followed me home from the animal shelter?" Emma replied not quite sure herself what had happened. She remembered waking up next to Regina this morning though and that was very nice.

"Why were you at the animal shelter?" Regina asked to get to the bottom of the situation.

"Buying a dog?" Emma admitted in a soft voice. "Don't be mad! Puppies and babies should grow up together," she explained in iEmma logic/i.

"This apartment is too small for an overly active pet and a child!" Regina replied after she counted to ten in her head. "This is my penance for the space station incident, isn't it?" Regina probed with narrowed eyes.

"Perhaps," Emma replied noncommittally with a mischievous smile.

center– – –/center

All evening Regina fumed silently, throughout dinner and Emma's favorite show while she absentmindedly petted the puppy sleeping in her lap.

When they retired to Emma's bed, Regina was reading a book, ignoring Emma when she snuggled closer. Emma whispered, "Naming the puppy wasn't the only activity today. I've decided the name I liked for the baby and want to share it with you."

Regina looked down at her over her eyeglasses.

"Since I expect to be carrying a girl, I want to name her… Olivia. If you are truly amazing and it's a boy… then Oliver," Emma revealed with a smile.

Regina took off her glasses, laying them on top of her book on the nightstand as she gathered Emma's face in her hands and soundly kissed her.

When they broke apart, Regina replied, "I approve."

Regina looked directly into Emma's eyes seeing everything that mattered to her there before she brushed her lips against Emma's. She closed her yes as they deepen the kiss, her body tingling with delightful sensations that kiss and all the others that followed had generated.

Emma smiled as she wrapped her arms around Regina's neck and held onto her tightly, both of them completely lost in each other.

center– – –/center

Month Six of Emma's Pregnancy: A very pregnant, tired, pissed off Emma called Regina, "They condemned my building!"

"I don't find that development all that shocking, Emma," Regina replied.

"They won't let me, Jax and Dakota back inside the building because someone reported a gas leak!" Emma explained, ignoring the dig. "They don't know when they can let all the tenants back in the building!" She added in frustration.

"Then come to my place. Stay here until they sort everything out," Regina suggested. "There… all your stuff from the apartment is now all here with me," she added after a bit of moving magic.

"You won't mind the puppy at your mansion?" Emma asked a bit nervous that she might have to asked Dakota to watch her canine charge for a while.

"I don't live out on Long Island anymore," Regina revealed.

"What? Did someone condemn your house too?" Emma exclaimed, wondering if evil city officials were targeting Regina and her for bureaucratic hell.

"No, Emma, with only me puttering out there it was just too big and too lonely. I purchased a more suitable place in the city. Don't use magic, I'll send a car for you both," Regina instructed. "I hope that puppy has already done his business," Regina stated sternly.

"That's why we were out for walkies. I'll wait with Dakota until the car service arrives," Emma replied before ending the call.

center– – –/center

When the car serve arrived, Emma was surprised it was at the old building where she owed her dream loft. The doorman let and the puppy into the private elevator that used to go up to her rooftop apartment.

When she got to the loft she used to own, the door opened and Regina welcomed her inside.

"Regina! When did you buy my old place?" Emma asked bewildered while holding Jax the puppy.

"About a month ago," Regina answered. "It took me that long to sort out what I wanted to keep and what I was willing to part with from the house. I got a great deal on the mansion. A young couple, John and Steven were looking for a place. They have three young children. They brought the house as soon as they saw it but they needed a month to move in. I remembered you said you sold your old place which I really liked a great deal, especially the rooftop garden! So I made inquires and the developer who brought it from you was very interested in my offer," she further elaborated. "Surprise?" she hoped.

"Wow! This is a wonderful surprise," Emma replied as she looked around. Regina added her signature style to the place. It was still the same three bedroom two bath loft but Regina divided off a significant part of the cavernous living room into an office area with strategically place bookcases.

"Can we ditch the separate residences and finally consolidate Emma?" Regina asked with a sigh.

"Yes," Emma replied shyly.

Regina's phone rang and she held her hand up to Emma indicating that she need to take this call privately.

center– – –/center

Regina answered the call after she stepped in the office area.

"Hey Sugar! I'm just checking that our tamed wild child reached your place safely. It's not like a bitch will call a bitch to let someone know all is copacetic," Dakota complained.

Regina laughed, "Yes she and the puppy arrived safely. Thank you… for everything Dakota."

"Girl please! Ms. Oblivious would take forever and a day to make the right move." Dakota replied.

"You won't get into any trouble for the false gas alarm?" Regina asked.

"My ex works at Con Edison so there will be no heat breathing down Dakota's neck over this. Besides he and his buddies took all the warning signs and barriers down soon as the car service carrying girlfriend to you, turned a corner," Dakota laughed.

"What will happen to her micro apartment?" Regina inquired.

"I'll sublease it to a college student. There's loads of them in the city," Dakota replied.

"I owe you Dakota," Regina replied fondly.

"Yes, your fine ass does! My payment will be you in my fabulous charity fashion show next month to raise capital for a troubled youth shelter," Dakota commanded.

"Done," Regina agreed before ending the call.

center– – –/center

Emma hugged Regina enthusiastically when she discovered one of the bedrooms was decorated in the identical color scheme she had planned for the baby's room back at her apartment.

She kissed Regina on her cheek and whispered in her ear, "Tell Dakota I want the rent from any sublease to be placed in an escrow account for the building'"

Regina's eyes widened when Emma flirted saucily, "I just figured out on my tour of our new residence that mind reading thing you can do… goes both ways."

center– – –/center

During breakfast the next day, Emma was sipping an anemic herbal tea because Regina refused to let her have any variety of the coffee's she really wanted while doing a particularly hard Sudoku puzzle.

Regina looked up from her morning paper and asked "Emma?"

"Regina?" Emma replied without looking up from the math puzzle of hell, thinking they were doing that name thingy again.

"Do you recall when you marked me on my wrist in HEAVEN… as your wife?" Regina asked.

"That wasn't a matrimonial decision that was an escape tactic," Emma replied matter of factly

"So you are saying as marriages go, that one didn't count?" Regina wondered.

"Of course not! That alliance isn't even enforceable on Earth. We just got global same sex marriage. Non human–human marriages aren't even a consideration at this point," Emma replied as an expert on these extraterrestrial legal marriage issues.

Jax yawned, ready for a nice nap.

Regina laid the paper down, taking off her eyeglasses and rested them on top of the news while she took out a small silver box. She offered the box to Emma with a question, "Does this count?"

Wide eyed, Emma looked at the box then back up at Regina then back down at the box before She gasped as Regina took the top off to reveal a 24 carat diamond engagement ring.

"The kids have been complaining only to me, it seems because you can't be shamed, that our current living situation isn't quite proper and I wholeheartedly agree. Emma Swan, will you marry me?" Regina asked bravely not quite certain what the answer would be.

Blinded by tears, Emma dropped the puzzle book, nodding her head and said, "Yes."

center– – –/center

Month Seven Of Emma's Pregnancy: Regina and Emma exchanged vows on a private beach in Barbados British West Indies, with all their children, their children's partners, Blue and her fires, Tink and her family, Ruby and her rambunctious grand daughters and the ghosts of love ones, checking in form the great beyond.

center– – –/center

During their wedding night, Emma sheepishly asked if Regina could do that four armed thingy, to which Regina replied with a study smirk, as her exquisite two arms multiplied into four arms, "I'll be calling in a specific favor of my own… in the near future."

center– – –/center

The day Olivia Katherine Swan-Mills was born the loft was pandemonium with the entire family present and Emma's doula: she insisted on a home birth!

Jax sniffed the newborn, when the dark haired alpha female briefly allowed his nose vital access. He immediately decided it was his responsibility to teach the new pup how to protect their strange two legged, naked fabric wearing pack.


	10. Chapter 10: It was a dark and stormy nig

As the luxury SUV drove closer to Storybrooke, the landscape outside the vehicle changed from densely populated tall buildings on either side of heavy trafficked parkways to sparsely populated local road of seafood eateries, the mastheads of fishing boats moored along the distant shoreline.

She couldn't wait until they were finally in Storybrooke once again.

She smiled at Jax, the Labrador sleeping on the floor in front of the seat next to hers. His ears twitching excitedly as he dreamed.

iHe can't wait to get either/i! She thought. She loved that small town and couldn't wait to visit again either.

center– – –/center

Storybrooke was a small town of friendly people.

Last summer, her family visited her eldest brother and his wife. The visit was an adventure of discovery. Her Moms who always grumbled a lot about going back, seemed to relax a bit once they settled into the visit and were relieved when they eventually left to return to the city.

In Storybrooke, Jax was in heaven chasing after squirrels, rabbits, field mice and all those interesting smells, he didn't get in the city.

She remembered riding her blue bicycle along the newly installed bike paths, along tree lined streets with few to no cars riding along with her. Riding slowly along, she liked how people smiled and waved at you and said, "Hello" even if they didn't know her but most people in this town did.

She was older now, at least a year, so she anticipated riding her bike without her Mommy over protectively leading the way.

center– – –/center

Storybrooke was a small town of delicious apple trees.

She loved the smell of this town, sweet and fruity in the spring and summer; cinnamon spicy in the fall and winter. She loved the smell of wild flowers in the meadow just below the mountains, the coolness of the canopy of trees in the forests surrounding the town and the fireworks along the seaport during last years' Fourth of July celebration.

center– – –/center

Her Moms preferred the city to Storybrooke but they didn't begrudge Olivia's love of the small town. She loved the city too.

She lived in the city of millions, all eight years of her life. There were some potential dangers, like not being able to ride her trusty bike down city streets like the bigger kids did. But it was a great place of discovery and fun.

She loved the museums, the parks, the different neighborhoods, the different languages, the different cultures. She loved the trains which travelled so fast: she loved the fast pace of the city. People said hello in the city too. Sometimes it was nice, sometimes it was awkward.

iThat's the way the city was: a mix of awkward niceness/is, she thought as she looked at the bike hitch attached to the rear of the SUV carrying hers and her Moms' bikes.

center– – –/center

She didn't like the zoos though.

Before this years' summer break, her class took a trip to the zoo and all the animals seemed sad to her. Even though the animals were behind thick glass enclosures they were still behind bars, like criminals are when they were put in jail.

She wondered, iWas their crime… not being human?/i

Actually she knew the animals were sad because she could understand the strange way they communicated with each other… and with her: she could hear their thoughts! She knew she had this particular skill because she could always hear Jax's thoughts. She had very simple conversations with the family dog because Jax was only concerned about three things: securing the pack territory (he had often roped Olivia into numerous skirmishes with a territory pouching Maine Coon cat); meals were a religious experience and napping, lots of naps to rest up for the exhausting work of security.

Olivia knew the labrador was proud of her efforts as it taught her how to defend their urban dwelling.

As for the zoo animals, they had a more complex language derived from their much more nuanced experiences than her beloved domestic pet.

The Lionesses were bored: iFood that came without effort made life… bland/i, was what one of the lionesses conveyed to her, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.

The Lions were content to nap and lounge. Sex and food was plentiful. They only had to demand respect of their space when their cubs became a bit rambunctious.

The lionesses were neurotic and restless. They began to see teaching their young female cubs to hunt as a fruitless activity since food came whether one hunted to not.

They missed the mythical hunt. They wished their human devotees, yes they actually believed they were creatures to be worshipped, at least left a TV on or something.

One of the lionesses, the first ones' sister, paced incessantly, obsessed with not getting fat. iWithout the hunt, obesity was an unfortunate possibility/i, she told Olivia. That lionesses didn't believe Olivia when she tried to tell her she had a nice athletic figure… for a lioness.

The gorillas were depressed: They couldn't understand why they couldn't explore the interesting smells and colors just beyond the confines of their enclosure. They had explored every corner of where they lived.

Olivia was very sympathetic to their complaints. The home of the primates was like living in a video game world, initially fun but once you hit all the limiting boundaries of the game, it loses its wonder. "Life should always have a sense of wonder to it," was Mommy's often repeated comment about most things… and Olivia agreed.

The ideas of video games depressed the gorillas further as they all wished to play these video games which the human female child mentally described. When all the gorilla moped, turning away from the visitors, Olivia was sorry she used the stupid video games as an analogy. She realized she would suck as an animal therapist, none of her suggestions lessened the stress of the animals.

Most of the birds didn't understand why the same two legged people and their infants kept visiting every single day–all humans looked alike to them. They didn't understand why the same people had nothing else more interesting to do then to come visit everyday, acting rudely.

The reptiles actually thought they were dead and in reptile hell because they failed some arcane ritual they all had forgotten how to perform.

Olivia just shook her head vowing to avoid all zoos in the future.

She told her Moms about the animals and her mental conversations with them. Her Moms taught her to reveal only to them when some of her unique abilities developed and when she expressed them.

Olivia wanted to start a zoo rebellion to free all the animals until Mommy explained, "At the zoo they are housed, fed and kept healthy. On their own in the city, they would be a danger to themselves and others."

She didn't want the animals to be hurt further so she decided, she would one day find a better way to save them from the tyranny of zoos. iPerhaps outlaw zoos all together/i, she thought.

Mom loved her sentiment dancing excitedly around her, calling Olivia her budding little revolutionary. iMommy just rolled her eyes, which she did a lot around Mom/I, Olivia observed.

center– – –/center

Cities versus small towns: Olivia realized many people preferred either the city or the small town, but she loved them both. Not because her brother lived in one, not because Mommy created it, she loved how small towns and cities balanced one another energy-wise.

She thought cities and small towns were like stars. Cities burned bright like quasars while small town glowed like large giant blue stars.

She learned about such stars from hanging out with her twin sisters, Zoe and Alexis.

center– – –/center

Storybrooke was a small town of secrets: She knew the darker aspects of her unique family, her moms insistent that she knew the how, what, where and why to some of the uniqueness of her large family: like why all her siblings were decades older than she; why her nieces and nephews were about her age and why her moms… aged really slowly, like almost not at all.

Every question she had, was answered honestly, so honestly that when she realized she actually liked her oldest brother, Henry, she felt guilty about it. Her moms explained his past sins shouldn't dictate how she treated and regarded him, if he cared and loved her.

Mommy added, "Henry's dark deeds show us that all people are capable of committing horrific things, even you."

Olivia was scared that she would one day do bad things too until her Mom told her the old story of the mythic wolves:

blockquoteThere were two wolves, brothers. One was evil, the other good. They fought every day, every night. Mom told her those fighting wolves exist in every man, woman and child. She wondered which wolf will eventually win the fight? Mom told her, "The wolf you support and nourish." /blockquote

Olivia, at eight years old, promised to herself to take care of her inner good wolf, no matter what.

center– – –/center

The secrets of Storybrooke were hidden just below the surface: like her crazy old grandfather, Mr. Gold, who her brother Henry took care of. He was very strange, very rude. She was told he was harmless because he didn't have control over his magic like her Moms or her sisters' had over theirs.

Olivia's Moms didn't want her around him so he stayed with the sister fairies when they came to town to visit.

The strange fairy sisters: Olivia went to a private school in the city that employed sisters, or rather buddhist nuns. They were nice but they weren't as special as the sisters of Storybrooke, who had wings and could fly!

They didn't show just anyone their really cool wings. Olivia felt privileged they she knew about their wings when most of Storybrooke didn't.

Other secrets of the small town were about how she felt whenever they crossed the town line. The new energy tingled all over her body and she felt light and free, like how it felt to her after a rain storm.

iA town as special as Storybrooke was bound to have many more secrets just waiting to be discovered/i, Olivia hoped.

center– – –/center

Olivia was so excited, she didn't want to stop for lunch at the seafood restaurant but Mom was hungry. So hungry she complained as always that her innards were eating a hole right through her stomach.

She giggled as Mommy complained about the fried foods Mom ordered but smirked when Mom's meal order arrived steamed like hers and Mommy's.

center– – –/center

When the Mercedes-Benz SUV turned down the street that led to her eldest brother's home, She released her seat belt and waited impatiently for her Mommy to release the child-proof lock on the rear doors, when she finished parking the car and turning off the ignition.

Once Olivia heard that tell-tale click, she jumped out of the car, waking a sleepy Jax and ran towards the gate of the two story colonial home. She noticed her sister-in-law, Giselle napping in a comfy wicker chair when she reached the stairs leading to the porch. Beside the wicker table upon which was a large pitcher of ice cold lemonade and four glasses.

Olivia silently snuck up to Giselle: when her face was really close to the older woman's face, Giselle immediately opened her eyes and shout out, "Boo!" before Olivia could.

Not expecting that reaction, Olivia was a fit of giggles as she collapsed in the chair on the other side of the wicker table. Giselle poured her a tall glass of the beverage which she drank greedily. She liked it because it wasn't too sweet just like her Mommy's.

iMom puts too much sugar in her lemonade./i Olivia thought as she happily swung her legs.

Once her Moms' released Jax they approached the pouch. Giselle offered them both a cool beverage before unpacking the car, from long road trip.

Olivia observed her Moms speaking with Giselle. They had that secret language of friendship in their postures, light touches and laughter. iGiselle looked much older than the Moms: just like all her brothers and sisters did/i, she thought.

Olivia didn't think it was too weird that all her brothers and sisters were really much, much older than she was because age had no baring on their ability to have fun. They liked to play pranks on each other. Her oldest brother and her sister Zoe were always going at it with each other, to the entertainment of the whole family.

Her sister Zoe was a twin and really, really smart. Her eldest brother, Henry had a full head of white head and when he let his bread grow in last spring, summer and fall, he played a convincing looking Santa at the town Christmas Gala last year.

For New Year's Eve, her sister-in-law, Giselle had a iShave the Beard/i party, because she disliked kissing and snuggling her husband with the coarse beard always in the way. Henry didn't complain but he did complain about the magic mohawk prank Zoe played on him when Giselle to cut his hair!

When Olivia told him he looked like the fiercest warrior she'd ever seen with his mohawk, Henry wore it proudly… until it grew out.

Last Halloween, with her thick naturally curly dark hair, she dressed up as the vintage Dr. Who number four, with the cool hat and really long multi colored scarf and Henry dressed as his nemesis Davos, the head Dalek. His wheelchair really added the veritas to his costume.

They won best costume prize, which to, Olivia was just about everything!

center– – –/center

When everyone entered the house, Emma helped Giselle carry the pitcher and glasses back into the kitchen while Olivia grabbed her Mommy's hand to search for her brother, who they quickly found in the library, working at his desk.

Henry sat over his desk writing furiously with a pen. Giselle had shaped his Mohawk into a modern style since the sides, which she dyed black, had grown back.

"Hey Henry!" Olivia shouted to get his attention.

He looked up and smiled at his energetic baby sister and… his Mom. "I'm glad you guys made it! Zoe and the gang will arrive on the weekend. That should give me forty-eight hours of peace," he said.

"I don't know why you don't just ignore her antics," Regina advised him for the millionth time. "She has magic Henry," she added.

"I can't let her get away with things. What kind of message does that send to the non magical members of the fam?" He asked. "Besides the pranks are our special thing: how we get each other," he added with a smile as Olivia leaned against his wheelchair to read what he was writing.

"I suppose you'll just have to deal with all sorts of bizarre hair styles in the future," Regina warned. "This style suits you, Henry," she added.

"Please," he waved off. "She doesn't limit her color palate to my hair. Imagine waking up purple… all over," he disclosed between Regina's raised eyebrows and Olivia's giggles.

"I'll have a talk with her," Regina promised.

"Olivia!" Emma yelled from the kitchen before Henry could reply.

"I wonder if I'll ever cure her of that yelling habit," Regina spoke aloud as she looked up towards the ceiling. Olivia hurried off to find out why her Mom shouted out for her, leaving Henry alone with his Mom.

After an awkward moment, Regina revealed, "Emma called her to give us some privacy."

"I figured as much," Henry replied as she straightened out the stack of papers he was writing on.

"What are you working on?" Regina asked as she moved closer to his desk.

He just smiled indulgently at her which prompted her to roll her eyes. "Not another one?" She complained.

"I can't help if the most interesting people I know happen to be my parents," he said conspiratorially.

"You need to meet more people Henry," was her retort.

He laughed as wheeled himself from behind his desk. She looked at his wheelchair: it was slicker more modern but still a wheelchair. So she inquired, "You haven't seen about repairing the damage to your legs?"

"I don't need to," he replied dismissively.

"You don't need to walk again?" She asked puzzled.

"I just purchased a recumbent bike and I want to see how fast I can pump it with these guns," he boasted as he gestured to his biceps to change the subject.

"I can heal you," she revealed, pressing on.

"I know Mom," he replied with a sigh. "Zoe told me that healing was your expertise," he revealed.

"Why haven't you asked? If you want to walk again, I can heal your legs," Regina offered.

"Mom, I don't need to… forget how I got in this chair… nor why. Sitting in this chair, I'm a man I can respect and I have gained everything I could have ever dreamed of. If giving up my legs was the toll, I gladly pay it," he answered as best he could. "Mom, some scars should never disappear. Some scars need to remind us… to be better," he added to stop her arguments to the contrary.

She nodded silently as she took his hand, the hand that wore a glove of dark magic, so many years ago and she squeezed it in gentle recognition, of the scars left behind be her own long past dark deeds.

"How is he doing?" She asked to change the heavy subject.

"Driving his nurse nuts." He replied with a shrug. "She over reacts but she's lasted longer than most of them have. Her one year work anniversary is next month. If she doesn't quit before hand, in disgust, Giselle and I plan to send her to a weekend spa for a treat," he added.

"Emma and I will contribute to that treat," she commanded. He nodded accepting her request and gestured for her to sit down on the couch, which she hesitantly did. He stopped his chair in front of her and drank in her beautiful, eternally youthful face and her inquisitive dark eyes. He closed his eyes briefly in relief, when he didn't see apprehension there any more, only concern.

"Mom I'm always glad to see you when you visit but this time I think you guys shouldn't stay too long," Henry warned. "When Zoe and the gang have to leave on Sunday to return to work. You, Ma and iThe Olive/i need to leave when they do," he instructed.

"What's happened? What has he done?" Regina worried.

"Gramps is an ornery, rude, jack ass but he's harmless. He and I speak a language common to jackasses. I totally get you not wanting Olivia anywhere near him but he's not the problem. It's Blue. She hasn't been totally honest with you and Ma. When I found out last night, I told her I was going to tell you whether she fess'ed up or not," he revealed.

"Found out what?" She demanded to know.

"She wanted Olivia to come with you because of her new animal talking skill," Henry revealed. "No one hurts my baby sis, Mom. No one! I will not be offended if you and Ma leave now. In fact, I encourage it. Plans change, we can all come to the city to visit you instead," he spoke with authority.

"We will speak with Blue in the morning, then we decide what to do," she added with determination.

center– – –/center

Olivia was bored.

None of her nieces nor nephews had arrived in town yet, so there was no one to play with.

She sighed as she waited for her Moms to return from their important business with the fairies. "Whatever that was," she grumbled. Giselle left her in the care of Henry as she went down to Main Street to fix an emergency at her beauty shop.

Olivia was still bored: she had already finished her magic lesson for the day.

Mommy insisted she learn magical restraint in their absence, so today's lesson involved eggs and feathers. It took her a while to be more gentle with both items. The broken eggs dipping on her and the feathers that seems to have minds of their own were very annoying.

It took her all morning to master something Mommy revealed that even Mom had some magically issues with: restraint.

After magic lessons, under Henry's watchful eye and entertainment, she found Mom had taken her trusty blue bike and left it in the garage with the other bikes. She helped him into his recumbent bike and they rode together all the way from his home to 2356 Mulberry Court, where the Convent of the Sister's of Saint Meissa, which was located across town.

Henry revealed to Olivia that he learned from Zoe, that Meissa, wasn't really a patron saint but iThe Shining One/i a bright star in the constellation of Orion.

iZoe knew just about everything about stars/i, Olivia thought wishing her sisters had arrived in Storybrooke already.

She and Henry waited until the Moms were finished with their ihush hush/i business with the fairies. When their mothers emerged from the tall gate of the convent they looked annoyed, tired and worried as they approached their curious children.

As Mommy hugged her, Mom gently squeezed Henry hand as it rested on the handle bar of his recumbent. Olivia knew that meant Mom would speak with him privately about what was discussed with the fairies.

iPrivately meant only grownups were going to be allowed in these secret talks, which sucks/i, Olivia thought. iGrownup stuff I won't know anything about until all the interesting stuff was all over/i, Olivia complained to herself, having inherited a familial curiosity.

Mommy who seemed to sense how Olivia felt, assured her she would know everything, after they figured it all out for themselves first. A promise Olivia held onto as her Mommy waved her hands dematerializing them all, including the bikes and SUV, back to Henry's house, after making sure no one saw them.

center– – –/center

Later that evening after dinner, Henry sat at his desk, in the library, reviewing the document he was working on earlier. After his bizarre adventures in HEAVEN, so many years ago, he preferred to iold school it /i writing everything with a pen or mechanical pencil. Then he scanned it into the handwriting program on his desktop, Giselle programmed to recognize his penmanship. The program converted all his writing into rich text documents, without him having to touch a keyboard and manually typing it in.

He smiled when he detected his youngest sibling attempting to sneak up on him. At the last moment, when she was right behind him, he rotated his electric wheelchair around to face her to say, "Boo" before she could surprise him.

She pouted miserably. iFirst Giselle, now this! Henry and Zoe used to be the most difficult to pull pranks on. It wasn't fair, not fair at all/i, she complained to herself.

Henry laughed as her pout deepened. His laugher subsided, as he gestured for her to sit on his lap. She sat down, with the book Giselle let her borrow still in her hands. He looked at the book and observed, "I relearned to like that one again. It's a good story."

"Relearned to like?" She asked as her cheeks beside her button nose crinkled.

"There was a time… I hated books. I thought they were filled with nothing but deceptions," he revealed.

"What made you like them again?" she asked as she looked around his office / library, since every wall was covered in overflowing bookcases. There were even stacks of books beside his wooden desk.

"Giselle: she read stories to me. Eventually, I wanted to read a few back to her," he replied with a smile filled with warm memories reading with his wife.

"I like stories too, especially the story about what was going on at the convent yesterday," Olivia smiled sweetly. "Come on Henry something is going on. I know the Moms finally told you! I wanna know too," she pleaded.

"Ok, I'm done writing for the day. How about we finish the one about Jason and the golden fleece?" He defected.

"I don't wanna hear about him," she replied.

"Okay how about Hercules? Or Perseus? You always loved that story," he suggested.

"Hercules and Perseus are boring," she replied. "I wanna hear about… the Moms," she whispered. "What did they talk about at the convent? Where did they go after lunch? What was all the whispered secrets and hush, hush phone calls with Zoe and Alexis? I'm not five years old anymore you know," She spoke as though she had decades of wisdom under her belt.

"They are not in any danger. No one is," he tried to assure her, silently relieved she didn't want to know all the gory details of his past dark deeds. "Don't you have to get ready for bed soon?" He asked to distract her.

"I wanna know everything and not just the good parts," Olivia replied. "I want all the juice parts too!" She exclaimed.

iThe juicy parts! Being at the epicenter of so many so called juice parts, I really hope she doesn't want to delved too deeply into them/i, he worried.

Olivia and all his nieces and nephews knew in general about the events that led up to him being confined in a wheelchair but they were too young to know all the gruesome details. He knew one day they would be old enough to know everything: all the juicy but unsavory parts. He just hoped that the affection and fondness they all had for him as children didn't dim too much in the revelations.

"I know the Moms can handle themselves I just wanna know what they are doing when they do," Olivia explained. "Besides, bed time is like two hours from now!" She exclaimed with a dismissive hand wave, looking so much like Mom to him, when she did that gesture.

"Hmmm, I don't know if the Moms want to you to know just yet. If you are as curious as I used to be, you might entertain some dangerous ideas with too much knowledge, young lady," he warned.

"I won't do anything stupid! Can't you tell me about something about what's going on?" Olivia pleaded.

Henry considered her request. He remembered how hungry he was for knowledge when he was a boy. iThe Streisand Effect,/i he remembered. iWhen you try too hard to hide things, the act of hiding them reveals everything to the curiosity of the seeker/i, his thoughts concluded.

He adjusted his seat in his wheelchair and rolled towards her. She climbed onto his lap and sat there expectantly.

"Okay you know all about the dark curse of Storybrooke and how it was stopped?" He asked.

"Yeah, Mom kissed you when you were a little boy," She answered with an eye roll. She heard that story a zillion times already.

"After that mess mushroomed into an even bigger mess. A lot of which, I contributed," He admitted. "Ever since you were born, Mom has been obsessed with stopping dark curses and you know Ma, she's down for whatever Mom wants to do," he began to reveal as he noticed their dark haired mother silently materialize in the room.

She nodded her consent that he tell Olivia as much as he knew:

center– – –/center

"Blue! You said Storybrooke was safe!" Emma exclaimed.

"If you've lied to us…" Regina began to threatened.

"I would never place young Olivia in harms way! When you informed me of her new skills emerging, I could see no other way to deal with the strange things happening in town without utilizing Olivia's ability," Blue interrupted the promise of retaliation. "She may be able to pinpoint why the town library is haunted!" She added.

"Haunted? Have you at least located where it is?" Emma asked.

"The maze under the library," Blue answered. "Olivia will not have to go anywhere near it," she added.

"Who opened the portal?" Regina asked. "Was it Gold?" She demanded to know.

"While he's still the dark one he still has no access to his magic. We don't know but I suspect it was ripped open from the other side. All these creatures have escaped from it and we need to know why," Blue replied.

"Why does this stuff keep happening here in Storybrooke?" Emma asked.

"Nyx my head of security did some research. The land upon which Storybrooke fell, has a dark history," Blue revealed.

"Why am I not surprised?" Regina exclaimed with a deep sigh.

"What sort of dark history?" Emma asked.

"This land was the location of two dark historical events: the massacre of a native village by frightened pilgrims intoxicated on fungal infected grains and residual magic power from the deaths of persecuted witches," Blue disclosed.

"I'm glad your real estate prowess had improved over the decades Regina," Emma joked.

"The majority of Storybrooke's current residents aren't from the Enchanted Forest and know nothing about magic. While the police can hold off those curious about why access to the library has been restricted, I am concerned. Two people have disappeared: a teacher who was returning books from the school and a lawyer who was doing legal research. Both of their spirits were reported haunting the library. What if the next victim is a child? Whatever turned them into apparitions came from that portal! A portal formed from dark magic. I can feel a dark curse at the center of it all." Blue informed them.

"We will close it," Regina decided for herself and Emma. Emma agreed with a determined head nod. "What do we need Olivia to do?" Emma asked.

"Speak to one of the creatures that emerged from the portal," Blue said as she lifted a large glass bottle containing delicate beautiful silver living spiders which were collected as they emerged from the portal. The lights dimmed curiously in the room as she handed the jar to Regina who took it as she looked curiously at the arachnoids.

center– – –/center

After Henry recounted what he knew, Olivia sensed her mother in the library with them. She ran to her and hugged her. "Mommy, I know you and Mom are gonna kick some dark curse butt. Just don't be late for the surprise we have for you both," she said.

"We? What surprise?" Regina asked as she looked at Henry. He was in the dark about such things so he shrugged his shoulders, indicating he wasn't among the mysterious "we".

"Mommy, if I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise," Olivia admonished as she released Regina from the hug.

Regina held up a large clear glass jar filled with silver spiders. She asked Olivia, "Can you communicate with these creatures?"

Olivia stared at the jar then exclaimed, "Mommy you have to let them out!"

"Why?" Henry asked.

"They aren't moving because they are scared," Olivia revealed. "If you let them out they will weave, when they weave they will calm down enough to not be so scared," Olivia said.

"I don't think Henry would appreciate silver cobwebs all over his library so we will release them in an abandoned barn, off Post Road… in the morning. Besides, Zoe, Alexia and all the kids should arrive after breakfast. We'll head out to the barn then," Regina informed them both. "As for you madam, it's closely approaching your bedtime," Regina warned Olivia,

"Bedtime is not for another…" Olivia began to protest, wanting to delay going to sleep so as not to miss anything interesting while she slept.

"Twenty-minutes, getting intel out of your brother ate up a great deal of time, After you've washed up and dressed for bed, you'll be ready for the Sandman," Regina interrupted, as she gave Henry the jar of spiders for his safe keeping, until the morning.

"Mommy you know there is no such thing as a Sandman," Olivia explained with a seemingly ancient knowing.

"Actually there is but that's a story for another time," she revealed as she ushered her shocked and curious daughter out of the library. "Good night Henry," she added before they both left the room.

center– – –/center

As Regina entered the guest bedroom from the ensuite, she rubbed lotion on her hands, neck and face. Emma, already under the covers, lowered her eyeglasses as she looked up at her from the papers Nyx gave her.

"Regina, this land Storybrooke sits on has a weird history during the early part of America then it sat abandoned for decades until you created the town. This stuff is amazing!" Emma gushed.

"Emma…once we find out the information we need from the spiders, I don't think we should both enter the portal," Regina suggested.

"Why not?" Emma asked.

"One of us should stay behind. What if something happens to both of us? I don't want Olivia to be an orphan!" Regina laid bare all her concerns.

"So what are you suggesting? I just let iyou/i go in there alone? Not gonna happen, not on my watch. Come here," she offered as she held out her hand. Regina took it allowing herself to be gently pulled onto the bed and into Emma's embrace.

"Regina, a very wise woman once told me, you and I were more powerful together than apart," Emma spoke solemnly against Regina's forehead.

"What idiot spewed that nonsense?" Regina griped.

"I won't have you call my amazing, brilliant, courageous wife that name! Besides that moniker is mine! I shall never share it!" Emma pronounced then she soundly kissed said wife to quiet all her concerns about the latest mission. "Honey, we will watch each others backs, solve this and get back here for whatever mischief Zoe has roped our youngest into," Emma promised.

"You think Zoe is the ringleader? Not Alexis or Xisi even?" Regina asked as she settled with her head against Emma's chest.

"You didn't see Henry when he was purple all over did you?" Emma answered with a question all her own.

center– – –/center

At the barn just off Post Road, Regina, Emma, Olivia and Jax waited impatiently for Blue to arrive to let the spiders out. Jax had sniffed every smell around the barn, its contents and he surround ing lands had to offer. After he marked the new territory for his pack, he settled down beside Olivia feet for a rest.

"Yes, Mommy," Olivia answered in a monotone voice.

"Remember, Alexis is in charge," Regina instructed. "Please restraint yourself from getting into any mischief. When in doubt, refer to Alexis. Henry and Zoe are… too playful," she added after she searched for the appropriate descriptor.

"You misspoke, I think troublemakers was the term you were looking for," Emma replied with a broad smile.

"Your genes are quite strong in our progeny, Dear," Regina countered with a broader smile and coquettish eye blinks.

"Your bedtime is written in stone, there will be no deviation from your schedule," Regina continued returning to her authoritarian voice as she noticed Blue arriving in a shoe SUV driven by Nyx. "There will be no midnight snacks, no copious sugar laden treats in our absence," she added.

"Let the kid have a bit of fun, Mommy!" Emma offered as Olivia gave her the puppy dog eyes.

"You want to endure an eight hour car ride back to the city with a child who has main lined mass quantities of sugar?" Regina inquired of her beloved.

"Eat a piece of fruit if you get the munchies," Emma commanded with an authoritative pointing finger.

"Mom, not you too!" Olivia exclaimed.

"Not you too what?" Blue asked when she and Nyx approached the subset of the large Swan-Mills family.

"They are both ganging up on me!" Olivia narc'ed.

"Nothing I can do about that I'm afraid," Blue replied with a laugh. "The trials and tribulations of adolescence… I don't miss it," she added which caused all the adults to laugh. Olivia frowned.

When Nyx turned off the car ignition and got out, Emma took the jar of silver spiders out of one of Henry's old knapsacks she found in his garage. Regina took the jar from Emma. She walked a distance away from the group, near the opening of the abandoned barn, placing a barrier spell around the small group just in case the inert creatures in the jar were more dangerous than Blue suspected.

Once she opened the jar and shook the creatures free, they began to stir on the ground as Regina stepped away from them, into her protective barrier.

The silver spiders scrambled towards the barn, quickly climbing its walls once they entered it. They began weaving an elaborate, web of ultra thin silver, so thin parts of it glistened sapphire red when the sunlight, danced along its length.

The group watched the web quickly emerge when Olivia revealed, "They need the web to… learn about this… dimension? The web conducts electricity. They don't eat insects. They eat electricity!"

"Is the web dangerous?" both Blue and Regina asked at the same time. Regina held out an open palm toward the growing web and was shocked to discover heat emanating from it.

"I wouldn't get too close to it," Olivia suggested as she got a firm sense from the spiders that the web was not only being used to receive signals but also protect the spiders by projecting an electrical beam.

After a moment, Blue asked Olivia, "Can you find out why they escaped from the portal? Can they tell us what's on the other side?"

Olivia scrunched up her nose as she sent the question mentally to the spiders. The spiders didn't stop weaving as they told her their story:

iIt was light, We were fed, it was good. Then it was wet. Too wet to stay dry. Then it was dark. In the dark there is no food. The light didn't return. It was dark all the time. We starve in the dark. There is light here, abundant light. We move towards the light./i

iWhat or who took the light?/i Olivia asked mentally.

iTsukuyomi stole the light for himself./i The silver spiders answered.

After Olivia told the magical adults everything the spiders told her, they began to strategize:

"These creatures consume electricity. Is that going to be a problem if they stay here and multiply?" Regina wondered aloud.

"Assuming their hunger for electricity becomes a very big problem here, can we get them to go back to their world before closing the portal?" Blue added her thoughts.

"These bugs are attracted to light. If we stop this light stealing Toyota person when it is dark here, the light from their world might attract them back over to their domain. Then we close the portal," Emma suggested as though her solution would be a walk in the park.

"Thieves don't give up their bounty easily. Anyone who can steal the element of light must be very powerful," Regina replied.

Just when Blue was about to respond Regina's cellphone rang, it was Henry.

Emma watched as the stress of this current crisis danced across her expressive wife's face. Regina finished the call abruptly and briskly informed the others, "Of course my deranged father picks today of all days, to escape from those keystone cops you have installed as the Storybrooke Police. He's locked himself in the town library looking for Belle."

"Hey, my patrol personnel are well trained for policing… normal, sane people," Nyx muttered aloud in response to the thinly veiled insult.

"The library… where the portal is open?" Emma asked. Regina shot her a look of annoyance then she began pacing.

"Okay, Blue take Jax and Olivia back to Henry's while we sort out this spider issue," Emma suggested.

"But Mom…" Olivia began to whine. She wanted to sneak onto this new mission since they found her creature communicating skill useful. Jax, who sensed another being left behind situation beginning to emerge, barked his protests too.

"Enough! Olivia no Jax home. Now." Emma spoke authoritatively, silencing both Olivia and the Labrador Retriever. She kissed them both before she ushered them toward the fairy's vehicle. They both got into Nyx's SUV with identical pouts.

Emma watched her wife pace as Nyx drove away from the barn in a cloud of dust.

Regina stopped pacing when she realized Emma was staring at her. "What?" she inquired from a deeply building annoyance.

"Vent," Emma replied succinctly.

"What?" Regina repeated.

"Vent. Let it out," Emma clarified.

"Let what out?" Regina asked as though Emma were speaking nonsense.

"It: all the stuff you've been burying down so deep I think you actually believe you made it disappear," Emma said.

"Emma, we don't have time for your games," Regina breathed out.

"My games mostly involve you and me, naked. My games don't involve much sleeping either. Speaking of which…," Emma replied. "You talk in your sleep," she revealed.

"What?" Regina asked.

"You talk in your sleep. All the stuff you suppress? You talk about it sometimes in your sleep," Emma clarified.

"What stuff?" Regina asked not believing any of it.

"How I've pissed you off. How sometimes you can't believe you've forgiven Henry. How angry you are Jax died… Stuff like that," Emma disclosed matter of factly.

"I… talk about that… in my sleep?" Regina asked bewildered.

"Yep. I tried annoying you enough to blow off some of the steam but you keep deflecting and denying," Emma said. "In a way, this new crisis will be good for you," Emma considered aloud.

"Good for me how?" Regina wondered, still bewildered she talked in her sleep.

"Let it rip! Vent. There no one else here but the spiders and me," Emma said.

"You won't want to be here if I do anything like that," Regina said, dismissively.

"But I do. I am on the list of many who have pissed you off. Most probably, on the top of your list," Emma considered. "Regina you don't have to live up to the archaic values of a culture long dead. You don't have o be perfect. Just be… you," she added.

Regina began pacing again.

"There no time like right now to get shit off your chest. I say go for it. Unless…" Emma's observations trailed off.

"Unless what?" Regina insisted on knowing.

"Unless you're too scared… of what happens... after you vent," Emma replied.

"Nothing frightens me!" Regina spat out.

"But yourself," Emma observed.

"Don't pretend you know me well enough to tell me my fears," Regina spat out.

"You know my fears. I know yours. Its part of our thing," Emma said.

"So now that you've ascended you are all knowing? Pray tell me, Dear. What are my fears?" Regina mocked.

"Your darkness: you fear it's reemergence," Emma revealed.

"And you don't?" Regina asked curious of the answer.

"No," Emma answered without hesitation.

"Why not? What makes you so brave?"

"Your darkness never left you. She… is you. She's a part of you, an essential part. You can't make that part of yourself disappear anymore than you can stop loving all your children, or being my amazing wife," Emma spoke her thoughts aloud.

"Once again you are so far off the mark, you don't know what you are talking about," Regina spat out.

"Enlighten me."

"Fine. I will enlighten you. Contrary to your singular belief, I don't fear myself. I am concerned about my despicable father. What happens when he dies? There is an elemental darkness within him. Darker than I've ever been. Where does it go when he no longer exists? Have you even considered that I may inherit the very aspect of him that I despise? You don't fear me? How would you like being married to the new Dark One? If that doesn't scare you, you are more foolish than I thought you to be," Regina replied hotly.

"You got more than that to get off your chest let it rip," Emma encouraged.

"You are so smug in your certainty that every thing will work out. How blind can you be? Nothing worked out in the past! We lost each other, completely!" Regina exclaimed. "Then I had a new life: a good life," she whispered.

"So why do you resent me?" Emma asked.

"Don't act like a martyr, Dear. Victimhood isn't your style," Regina quipped.

Emma raised her eyebrows with a sassy smirk, not buying any of that.

"I never resented you, Emma. I resented how guilty your sadness made me feel. I had done nothing to deserve all this… guilt. It's smothering," Regina revealed.

"Stop feeling guilty then," Emma suggested.

"Easier said then done."

"You got me back good for being so thick headed about us and how important we should have been to each other," Emma said to refocus the conversation.

"Did I?" Regina asked with mock innocence.

"Yes, Regina. I may be slow at times but falling to the earth at 9.8 meters per second from the space station told me a lot about how my stupidity and blindness pissed you the absolute, fuck off," Emma disclosed.

"Then you aren't as dumb as I've been led to believe," Regina smirked.

"So you aren't really guilty about me. Not really. There's more in there. You've barely touched the surface," Emma suspected. "Don''t use me to stop going deeper," she advised.

"Why are we doing this now? There is a calamity back in town with both our names on it," Regina exclaimed to halt this conversation before it ventured into a dangerous territory of no return.

"Sucks doesn't it?" Emma asked.

"What?" Regina asked bewildered by the change in topic.

"Sucks that we were pulled from our normal lives to fix this stupid town's weird, potential dangerous problems, created by nameless others I might add," Emma clarified.

"This 'savior' crap is for the birds. I didn't sign up for this shit!" Regina shouted after a few deep breaths.

Emma smirked at the rarely expressed expletive then said, "Welcome to my world."

Regina continued pacing as she rolled her eyes with annoyance.

"Just say the word and you, me,iThe Olive/i and Jax are outta here. Let Storybrooke handle its own problems. This stopped being our home decades ago. We can go back to our life and I will not feel one ounce of guilt," Emma suggested.

"How can you not?" Regina asked.

"I have you… by my side. I learned my lesson: focus on my priorities," Emma answered.

"You can't walk out on Blue and the rest of this town!" Regina exclaimed.

"If you say: let's blow this 'popsicle stand' town, just watch me," Emma said.

"Once again it's on me. Once again I'm the one to make the hard choices!" Regina lamented.

"Then I'll make them: get in the car and let's go home," Emma commanded.

"We can't do that Emma!" Regina exclaimed.

"What's to stop us?" Emma asked.

Regina looked at their SUV parked, ready for them to escape. She looked down the dusty road leading away from the barn, towards Henry's house. She could just imagine the town sign disappearing in the rearview mirror.

"Me. You. Us. Our children. Take a pick. Because whatever this new emergency is you know as well as me that somehow this will eventually affect our children, our family," Regina said, her voice emerging from her imagination.

"So we stay, we save the day… then we go home," Emma declared.

"You can be so irritating sometimes!" Regina exclaimed.

Emma raised her hands as a gesture that Regina should go on.

"Just like your idiot parents. Everything isn't all sunshine and roses. Hard decisions come from harder choices. And the truth of the matter is I'm tired of having to make them," Regina revealed.

"Then I'll make them for you, if that's what you need from me," Emma said.

"I don't need you to do that. I'm just tired of having to do it," Regina clarified.

"What do you need me to do for you?" Emma asked.

"How should I know? I do know, I don't need… whatever this is," Regina replied.

"And if I think you do?" Emma asked.

"You'd be wrong," Regina replied.

"Been wrong before but I think I'm in the right church, sitting in the right pew on this one," Emma said.

"Emma sometimes you confuse me. I don't understand what you are talking about," Regina remarked.

"You told me how I've irritated you. You've spoken about how this hero bullshit is bullshit, even touched on the potential Dark One legacy but you haven't spoken about…" Emma spoke before she was interrupted.

"Henry," Regina finished her sentence. "He doesn't want to walk again," she revealed.

"I know," Emma replied.

"How do you know?" Regina asked.

"I asked him if he wanted me to ask you to heal his legs. He said no without any hesitation," Emma revealed.

"Why does he think not walking again is a penance he needs to pay?" Regina wondered aloud.

"He doesn't know does he?" Emma asked.

"Know what?"

"In one of those alternative lifetimes… you killed him," Emma disclosed softly.

"Why would you think I would ever tell him that?" Regina spat out.

"I agree he doesn't need to know but its occurrence is still affecting you. Regina, you can't keep this stuff bottled up inside. You have to let it out. If you want to yell at someone, yell at me. Curse me out, if need be. You need to hit something, pulverize the barn walls. I love you dearly but I will hit you back and we don't need that bullshit between us, we have enough to deal with as it is," Emma suggested.

Regina laughed until her laughter turned to tears and sobbing. Emma held her letting her cry out, "I hate this! I hate having to shoulder so much crap that life throws at me while accepting so little. I loathe my crazy father! I hate his inability to understand that Belle is dead! How was her dead body a source of confusion? I hate that my son doesn't want to walk ever again! I hate feeling like I have to censor myself, even with you!"

"That's why you needed this. I will never, ever ask you to be less than who you really are," Emma whispered gently in her ear. "Lets collect these silver bugs, get to the library, sedate your pain in the ass father and close that damn portal," Emma said. "Then we go home. After this little adventure, Storybrooke is on her own, we're retired," she decided for them both as she gently wiped the tears from her wife's cheeks with her thumbs.

Regina smiled, nodding her head approvingly. Emma let her go from the embrace. Regina stared at the doorway of the barn almost completely blocked by the silver web. She waved her right hand, which pulled all the silver spiders away from their weaving task, placing them back into the glass jar. Then she sealed it.

As Emma picked up the jar, she had a vague sense the spiders were a bit miffed. She placed the jar back in the knapsack. They both got into the SUV. Regina drove them back to toward Main Street, towards the town library.

center– – –/center

When they reached the library, the main doors were barricaded from the inside and two Storybrooke police officers, fairies, were on duty outside. Inside Rumplestilskin aka Mr. Gold was ranting, "Give her back to me! I know you have hidden her away! Release my wife you bastards. You don't know who you are dealing with do you? You don't want to make me angry. You shouldn't like me when I'm angry! Give her back to me!"

Regina reached them first and inquired, "Why haven't you been able to open the doors?"

"He stole some powerful fairy dust," One of the officers revealed.

Annoyed, Regina waved her hand at the double front doors to the library but she was unable to magic it open. With a sigh she held out her hand waiting for Emma to take it. When she did, Regina dematerialized them outside the library doors and magicked them inside with Rumplestilskin.

He looked deranged but tired, his medium brown hair hanging down to his waist, with a white streak. His suit was impeccable but his feet was bare. His goatee was a mix of brown and white hair.

Rumplestilskin turned to face Regina and Emma when they appeared out of thin air and he growled at them like a feral animal: with the gnashing of sharp teeth.

"We got our tetanus shots during the last check up, right?" Emma asked in a whisper.

"Regina! I knew you were the one behind my missing wife. You locked Belle away before. You probably did it again. You've always lacked true imagination," Mr. Gold hissed.

"Belle's dead, Rumple. Dead as in, no longer alive," Regina shot back.

"Damn, Regina you couldn't ease him gently back to reality?" Emma admonished isotto voce/i.

"Its better to do it quick, like with adhesive tape on an open wound," Regina answered back, "Didn't you suggest, I let it… rip?" she asked with mock innocence.

"You shall soon be…" Mr. Gold began to threaten.

Regina rolled her eyes to the heavens, gestured with two fingers: the index and the middle. Mr. Gold's eyes rolled in the back of his head as he slumped down to the floor in a heap, unconscious. Ropes appeared out of thin air, to bind his feet and his hands behind his back.

"When the fairy dust fades, the officers outside can collect him," Regina said after the ropes finished their work, ending in strong knots.

Emma's eyebrows raised in shock, then she smiled proudly at her wife, exclaiming, "Regina that was the shit! You have got to teach me that spell!"

"You want magic lessons now? Right now?" Regina sassed.

"That was, as Zoe would put it, Da Bomb! I have got to add that one to my arsenal!" Emma exclaimed as they walked to the wall where the hidden elevator shaft was.

"We'll see," was Regina's non committal response as she pushed the button to reveal the hidden elevator.

Emma blushed as she recalled, "This was our first date, wasn't it."

Regina looked at her bewildered, "What the hell are you talking about now? The last time we came here we were looking for the true love magic my deranged father told us about to reverse my sleeping curse, which Henry accidentally consumed."

"Looking back, I'd say that was our first date," Emma replied.

"How do you figure that?" Regina asked as she hit the call button. They both stepped into the elevator when Emma stopped her. "I thought one of us has to stay up here to operate the elevator," Emma said.

"I only told you that at the time because I didn't want to face Maleficent," Regina revealed as she closed the elevator door and pressed the button to descend.

"Oh. It was still our first date," Emma observed.

"You are ridiculous," Regina said with a fond smile.

"I didn't say it was a successful date. It actually sucked as dates go. I mean: food poisoning? Fist fights in the closet? Instead of kissing you, I kiss our son. It's good we got better at the dating stuff over time," Emma recalled in a revisionist sort of way.

"I want whatever you've been drinking," Regina quipped when the elevator stopped at the bottom of the cavern.

center– – –/center

When they exited the library elevator, in front of them was a dark cavern which used to be the Maleficent's twenty-eight year prison. Hovering above a shallow, two foot deep canyon was the bright sliver of a portal, more like a violent rip in space. From it a few tiny metallic insects were escaping.

Both Regina and Emma approached it cautiously from opposite directions, sensing its dimensions. Emma laid the knapsack down on the ground beside her feet.

"I can't close it from here," Emma exclaimed as she tested her magic.

"Neither can I. Let's try at the same time," Regina suggested.

They tried numerous attempts but the portal stayed open.

"Damn it!" Regina exclaimed. "Just this once I would like this to be resolved easily. Without having to sacrifice my sanity and other important things!" She complained.

"Ditto," Emma agreed.

They held each others hands as Emma picked up the knapsack and slung it over her shoulder. As looked at each other, Emma said, "We are coming back home."

Then they jumped into the portal, together.

center– – –/center

On the other side of the portal, it was a dark and stormy night. No really! The rain was torrential and the darkness had a distinct personality: surly.

In mere moments, both Regina and Emma were soaked to the bone and they could find no shelter anywhere to get out of the drenching rain. In the dark, they kept holding hands until they felt or rather bumped into a metallic wall. They searched the wall until they found a space in it, sheltered from the rain where they could regroup.

"This is gonna take longer than I thought. We need of map of this place," Emma observed. I can't even see where the portal is. How did these spiders find it in all this darkness? She wondered aloud.

Regina attempted numerous fireballs for light but the rain kept extinguishing them.

iThe spiders!/i Regina thought silently and Emma perceived.

Emma took the jar out of the knapsack and handed them over to her. Regina held them up and a dim light slowly grew. She used the limited light to get her bearings. The dark red metal wall was approximately twenty meters tall and smooth. When she placed the lighted jar closer to the wall, she noticed the wall was constructed ultra thin strand on top of strand. She realized who built the wall as she looked at the inert silver spiders again.

"There's nothing to use on the surface to climb it," Emma observed.

"The spiders built it," Regina revealed as she pointed out the thin almost invisible seams of strands, in the makeup of the wall.

"Really? Why? What's behind this wall? The light stealing Toyota guy?" Emma wondered aloud as she searched along the wall of the shelter area they were in with her hands. Suddenly the part of the wall her pushed against gave way and she toppled forward. Regina dropped the jar to grab Emma.

The glass jar fell and smashed realizing the spiders as both women fell into the opening in the wall. As the wall closed seamlessly, the spider spurred away from the broken glass in a line.

center– – –/center

They landed onto of large cobweb, into a nest of silver spiders.

The web was a large glowing ball, suspended from the ceiling by numerous strands.

The impact of their bodies on the center of the web woke up the spiders with a jolt. They came out from everywhere to examine what disturbed their rest.

Emma eyes widened as both she and Regina were instantly covered by silver spiders.

Once they stopped trying to shake and brush the thousands of curious arachnoids off of themselves, the spiders used their front legs to probe the faint electromagnetic force that danced just below the skin of the curious bipedal creatures, learning everything about them in the process: they were both the females of their species (the child bearing components of a binomial species), they were both mothers (this fact pleased the Queen of the den of spiders), they consumed carbon based material burning it through chemical processes to gain energy, they assisted members of the den who escaped the perpetual darkness, they were mated to each other: once the pertinent information was obtained as judiciously as possible, the teams of spiders moved away from the two bewildered and overstressed women.

"You should not have released any light on the outside the wall," a female voice spoke out. "Not if you want to continue living," the voice continued.

Emma and Regina looked around the web and could not see who or what had just spoken to them. They released the web the fell on wasn't like the sticky web from back home so the cautious helped each other climb down off of it and down to the metal floor below.

Once they were on the floor they realized the web was the lighting system in the vast enclosed space. While Emma looked around, Regina worried about how they would be able to find their way back to the area of the wall near the portal back home.

"Welcome to my abode," the voice greeted them from the shadows of the room.

"Where are you?" Emma asked.

"Here," a petite Asian woman spoke as she approached them, "The spiders call me Amaterasu, but I am no goddess."

Regina lit up a large fire ball in the palm of her hand to add to the light of the web, which shocked Amaterasu. Emma followed suit turning herself into blue flame.

"Apparently, two goddesses have fell from the heavens into my humble dwelling. You honor me with your presence," Amaterasu spoke formally as she bowed reverently.

"We are not goddesses," Emma said with her blue flam hands resting on her blue flame hips.

"Amaterasu, I am Regina and she is Emma. Can you tell us where we are? And more importantly how to leave?" Regina asked.

"If you two aren't goddesses then you've come here through my portal! I've been stuck here for an eternity and I still don't know where this place is. I found a way to open an escape portal but I can't find it. I brokered a deal with the Queen of the metallic spiders for a team of her spiders to help find my portal for me," Amaterasu revealed.

"So you opened it. Then you can close it," Emma demanded.

"Only after… I leave this place," Amaterasu spoke with unwavering determination.

"I suspect the portal is near the wall where I let you two inside the wall," Amaterasu revealed. "You almost let him know about my plans using the spiders in a glass jar to amplify they light they give off! If he saw, that I'd be toast!" She complained.

"Who are you running from?" Regina asked.

"My brother," Amaterasu answered. "My insane brother Tsukuyomi," she clarified.

"Oh the light thief!" Emma exclaimed as the puzzled pieces assembled in her mind.

"How do you know Tsukuyomi?" Amaterasu asked with suspicion.

"The spiders who escaped from here told us about him starving them," Regina replied.

"Yes, it is unfortunate. I can only provide them with limited light. Without my weapons, I am in the dark as every creature here and eventually many of the spiders will perish. I will try to take a few with me to preserve their species, elsewhere," Amaterasu lamented.

Emma was about to speak when she felt something moving towards her from the shadows, When she turned to face what was approaching her, she saw a flash of silver, then felt a sharp pain across her midsection. Red flames shot out from a thin opening in her blue form. She changed back to her human form to heal and fell on her ass from the pain.

She touched her stomach with an open palm and it was completely covered with blood when Regina rushed to her side and examined her wound.

"Oh no he's found me! He's here!" Amaterasu exclaimed.

"Little sister, I enjoyed our game of chase. Now the game is over, for I have won!" Tsukuyomi spoke gruffly as he emerged from the shadows, a fierce some warrior wielding two golden katanas.

Regina pleaded as Emma struggled to heal herself, "What have you done to her?"

"The flame woman's soul will soon become part of my blades," Tsukuyomi boasted.

"My blades, not yours, thief!" Amaterasu shouted out.

"Once I swallowed all the light, your blades betrayed you. They eventually led me to you. Now they are mine," he exclaimed.

Regina frustrated and tired, turned to face Tsukuyomi as she revealed four arms, four hand holding four dangerously sharp blades.

She spoke calmly, "I don't know nor care about whatever family squabble you two have. All I care about is my wife. Either fix what you've done to her or suffer the consequences."

"Wife?" Tsukuyomi spat out in disgust. "Once either blade has tasted her blood, she is already dead," he taunted.

"Then… so are you," Regina replied as she flipped one sword in one of her four hands. The Queen emerged fully as she leaned her head to one side, sizing up her latest victim.

Tsukuyomi charged towards her calling her insulting names until his strike was stopped by her own block and countered with three slashes: one across his face, the second across his torso and the third across his attacking arm. He drew back away from her with a painful hiss.

He narrowed his eyes at her then retreated cowardly back to the shadows where he began his assault on the women.

Regina threw up one hand illuminating each and every wall with illuminating flames, instantly revealing his cowering location.

"Heal my wife then you will continue to live," Regina promised.

"Never," he spat out and charged at her once again.

Emotionless, Regina threw all four blades at him impaling him in his chest twice, one sword embedded itself in the wall behind him while the last killing blade impaled his head through his thick helmet.

His dead eyes frozen in shock, Tsukuyomi dropped the katanas, dropped to his knees and the impact off his head on the floor drove the killing blade further through his head up to its hilt. He rested forward on the floor by the hilt of the blade and his knees.

Regina looked at Amaterasu who bowed reverently to her, "You did me a service, Regina. That monster killed our parents and my husband because he wanted me for himself. Distracted by my grief, he stole my katanas of the light, then cursed them with the darkest of curses. Tsukuyomi was never content that he had inherited the samurai blade of darkness. He used it to consume all the light to capture me. Without my katanas I would never have been able to defeat him."

Regina nodded then came back to herself as she rushed to Emma side.

"That was… badass… your Majesty!" Emma gushed as she struggled to breath.

"Save your strength, stop talking idiot!" Regina admonished as a single tear fell. "Why do you keep doing this to me?" She pleaded.

Emma's eyes searched for Amaterasu. She found her after Amaterasu retrieved her katanas. Instantly the entire room was filled with a bright light from the opening at the ceiling. The rain outside had stopped. Emma could see they were inside a large warehouse with metallic walls, ceiling and floor.

"Amaterasu… what's happening… to me?" Emma labored to speak.

"My blades… are taking your soul," Amaterasu admitted shamefully.

"How?" Regina demanded to know.

"The toxin on them, kills the body to free the soul," Amaterasu explained.

"Poison. Okay. It hasn't… been in my system… that long," Emma spoke as she conveyed more unspoken information to Regina though their eyes.

"This is going to hurt Emma," Regina warned.

"Do it," Emma commanded. "We got a surprise waiting for us back home," she reminded her wife.

As Emma arched her back and screamed aloud, Regina cried as she began painstakingly drawing the katanas' oily white toxin out through Emma's wound: the process was so painful.

When Regina removed the last drop of the poison, Emma slumped back on to the floor in relief. She blinked, noticing the concern still on Regina's face as she examined her wound. Emma could feel it was still bleeding profusely.

"Cauterize it," Emma commanded. "It's the only way to be sure you got it all and close the wound too," she added before stuffing her mouth with the fabric of her own blouse.

The tip of Regina's finger burned bright red, blowtorch red.

Emma's muffled screams filled the room as Regina drew a red hot finger across the wound.

center– – –/center

The next day, Storybrooke's population grew by one new member who stayed with the fairies at the convent until they could figure out how to integrate Amaterasu into the small town community.

After playing all morning with her nieces and nephews all morning so her Moms could get some much needed sleep, Olivia biked over to the antique shop that used to be owned by her estranged grandfather but was now owned and managed by her older brother Henry.

Henry was storing some really beautiful gold katanas in a locked case with a red velvet interior. She watched him place the case in a vault she knew only Mommy can open, as they discussed their Moms latest adventures:

"Come on Henry! That did not happen! You are making stuff up!" Olivia exclaimed. "Mom would lose her mind if she ever found herself in a room filled with spiders! Mom screams like a girl every single time some strange bug wanders into our apartment, demanding that Mommy save her!" she exclaimed with glee. "Mommy just catches them and releases them in the park down the street," she revealed.

"Yes, I share Ma's bug phobia but it's all very true. Well, as close to the truth I got out of Ma," Henry replied. "She can be so tight lipped about things. It's infuriating especially when I'm trying to craft a good story out of it. Ma is all like, "We arrived, we kicked butt, we came home. What's for dinner?"" he complained. "Mom provides a bit more details but she always wants to leave herself out of those details, especially when she's central to resolving the problems," he added.

center– – –/center

That evening at dinner, Zoe, Olivia, Alexis presented their Moms with stylish, state of the art, protective suits that looked a bit like superhero costumes, complete with identity concealing masks.

"Surprise!" All their children yelled. Jax barked in unison.

"Henry?" Regina asked in wonderment.

"Hey! I didn't know all the details but when we all had the 'How can we assist the Moms' teleconference call, we all agreed we wanted to give you two a fighting chance to always be able to come back home," he explained.

Regina kneeled down to his level, hugged him and kissed him on his cheek as he whispered in her ear, "Welcome home Mom, I love you."

During dinner, Regina lovingly looked around the table at her large family, realizing that good fortune lightening strikes as many times as it likes, and it just took her being brave enough to grab what it offered her, to revel in the luck of having a beautiful family not just once… but twice in her many lifetimes.

She was disrupted from her mental contemplations by loud yelling and laughter.

Alexis shook her head disapprovingly. Zoe was laughing while wearing the whipped cream set out for the dessert and a rather large cute bunny wearing a white mohawk was sitting in the chair Henry normally occupied.

Emma was speechless, as Regina grabbed her eldest daughter up from her chair by her ear.

"Mom! I'm a grown woman!" Zoe protested.

"When you act like one, I'll treat you like one," Regina replied with authority. "The Queen has spoken!" Emma quipped. "Long live the Queen!" she added.

"Henry makes a lovely rabbit," Olivia remarked as she reached over and petted him on his head and fed him some of her steamed carrots, since they weren't her favorite vegetables.

"I refuse to be married to a bunny rabbit! I don't care how cute it is. My Henry is cuter! I have my limits… you magic mischief makers!" Giselle protested with a saucy wink. Olivia and Emma smiled at each other broadly.

"Come Zoe, its time you and I… had that talk," Regina said as she led an embarrassed Zoe out of the dining room by her ear.

Fin


End file.
